Ever since lockdown was implemented due to COVID-19, most services have shifted online. While Europe is now recovering from the coronavirus outbreak, multiple services are still being made available online. This not only includes businesses but also education. With schools shut down, homeschooling is now the usual method of delivering information to children who are eager to learn. And while classes are conducted from home, students doing their own research still need to sift through countless articles on the web to find reliable information.
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Amsterdam-based ed-tech startup Wizenoze is making this process a lot easier. It can be difficult for kids to find reliable information and the company tackles this issue via its offering called “Web For Classrooms” and offers access to high-quality educational information on the internet. The startup has now reached a new milestone by closing its growth-stage funding round.
Wizenoze to soon go international!
Wizenoze’s latest growth-stage funding round was led by Partners in Equity along with Amsterdam based VC CapitalT and its existing investors. Due to COVID-19 about 1.5 billion students are learning from home and are dependent on online information to support their learning.
“This investment enables us to further improve our technology and products to roll-out in the UK, Middle East, and APAC and to realize our international growth ambitions,” says Diane Janknegt, Founder of Wizenoze. “We are on a global mission to reach 1.5 billion students and give them access to the best educational information that the internet has to offer. Matched to their own learning capabilities.”
Also read: Amsterdam female founders on steadying the ship in rocky COVID-19 waters: Here’s how to navigate
Improving learning from home experience
Wizenoze was founded in September 2013 in Amsterdam by Diane Janknegt and Theo Huibers. The founders realised that there is too much information on the internet, which makes it harder to find relevant info easily. Students face this problem too while trying to find relevant, readable and reliable educational content to support their research and study. Wizenoze addresses this problem by facilitating access to an internet tailored for education, which is called Web for Classrooms.
The startup uses AI driven technologies that enable students to search and find content online that matches their needs and reading skills. The company’s service, Web for Classrooms, is free from ads and provides access to over 16 million curated web pages from teacher-approved sources. It also matches the learner’s reading level to cut down on time taken to absorb information. Wizenoze claims that as per a research done on classrooms worldwide, 91 percent of students with access to Web for Classrooms improved their learning results.
When asked Diane Janknegt — how was the company doing during these extraordinary times, she was quite positive and said, “Currently, over 1.5 billion students globally have to go online to get an education at home. So for everybody who has a digital or online proposition, this is a huge opportunity to accelerate their business.” Janknegt is also a participant in Techleap’s Rise Program, which is designed to help the Netherlands’ most promising scale-ups.
In these unprecedented times, the startup with a team of around 20-25 people, is all gushed to cruise through the challenges along the way. In fact, Janknegt revealed that they’re currently “hiring instead of firing.” You can check out the positions over here.
This article is produced in collaboration with StartupAmsterdam. Read more about our partnering opportunities.
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