The EdSheet Vol. 30

This newsletter covers the business side of the education industry - venture funding, M&A, other financial transactions. Whiteboard Advisors also publishes a daily newsletter - What We’re Reading - of curated, industry-focused news clips and a weekly newsletter - Whiteboard Notes - which covers policy, industry trends, and insights from W/A CEO Ben Wallerstein.

Hello!

It is the weekend before GSV and the education ecosystem is aflutter with excitement. Will there be any big deals or partnerships that become the talk of the conference? Stay tuned on LinkedIn for some predictions from Ben Kornell and me later today!

While it can feel chaotic in the moment, I always leave GSV happy. As convenient as it is to interact with teammates, clients, and friends virtually, having an in-person touchpoint still feels important. Please feel free to reach out if you’ll be on the ground in San Diego.

With that, onto the news!

Funding / M&A

Whiteboard Advisors not only provides policy and market-related diligence and advisory services, we track every financial transaction that happens in education — and keep a record of all deals that are publicly announced.

The following transactions caught our eye over the past few weeks. If you have a deal to announce, or would like access to the full transactions database, please reach out.

Venture Funding 

Clasp raises $20M / US, Student Financing & Recruiting / Crosslink Capital (Lead), Juvo Ventures, Strada

Clasp offers workforce infrastructure that connects clinical students with healthcare employers and ties student loan repayment to tenure. Through Clasp’s loan-linked hiring model – inspired by the military ROTC structure – employers (e.g., Boston Children’s, Northwestern Medicine) commit to clinical students before graduation and repay loans over time in exchange for a 3+ year commitment. The company focuses on areas with persistent labor shortages like nursing and allied health, driving improved recruitment & retention. This funding round reflects a structural shift toward tying education funding directly to workforce outcomes rather than individual student debt.

myFirst raises $8M / Singapore, Educational Toys / Vertex Ventures (lead)

Singapore-based myFirst develops hardware products like smartwatches and cameras designed for children, with a companion “safe” app ecosystem. The company is targeting parents seeking controlled introductions to technology for their children, and positions itself closer to consumer electronics than traditional edtech. The round will support expansion of both its product lineup and geographic footprint.

Flourish Care raises $5.7M / US, Recruiting / Zeal Capital Partners (lead), Rogue Women's Fund, Collide Capital, Symphonic Capital, Capita3, Slater Technology Fund, Create Health Ventures, Catalytic Impact Foundation

Flourish Care operates a platform focused on doulas, combining care delivery with training and workforce support. This venture round highlights a broader trend toward formalizing and scaling roles that have historically been informal within the healthcare system. Flourish does this by linking training, credentialing, and job placement in a job segment with growing demand.

UpSurgeOn raises ~$5.4M (€5M) / Italy, Healthcare training (Simulations) / CDP Venture Capital (Lead), SIMEST, Deep Blue Ventures, Azimut Libera Impresa SGR, FBH

UpSurgeOn develops simulation tools for surgical training, including physical models and digital (and VR) learning environments. The company targets early-stage medical training where hands-on practice is critical but access to real procedures is limited. The funding will support expansion of its product suite and international distribution. 

Chalkie raises $4M / US, teacher tools (AI) / TriplePoint Ventures 

Chalkie is building an AI-powered lesson planning tool aimed at reducing teacher workload. The product focuses on generating structured lesson plans aligned to standards. There are a number of other providers who have raised venture funding in this space over the past ~2 years, leading points of differentiation to focus on services provided and/or geographies targeted.

NpreP raises $1.5M / India, Test prep / nursing education / Lumikai

NpreP provides exam preparation for nursing students in India, focusing on licensing and certification tests. The funding from this round will be used to expand content and reach more students preparing for healthcare careers.

M&A

AppsAnywhere is merged with LabStats / UK (US), HED IT infrastructure

AppsAnywhere and LabStats have merged to provide universities to pair software access infrastructure with usage analytics, supporting more data-driven IT spending decisions. The newly formed company will serve over 1,000 institutions globally and are positioning themselves around efficiency and resource optimization. This merger follows February’s combination of CampusWorks and Dynamic Campus, indicating a potential trend towards consolidation in HED infrastructure and managed services.

Perceptyx acquires Lyceum AI / US, Professional Development

Perceptyx, an employee listening and analytics platform used by more than 600 enterprises has acquired Lyceum AI, an AI-native learning platform that uses conversational learning to verify actual skill comprehension and real-world application. The deal is designed to close the persistent gap between what companies learn from employee surveys and what development they actually deploy in response. The combined platform lets HR teams identify a workforce need, deliver targeted learning, and verify the outcome in a single system.

Miro acquires Reforge / US, Professional Development

Miro, which is best-known for their collaborative “digital whiteboard” workspace tool, has acquired Reforge, a COVID-era high-flyer that offers upskilling for product leaders. Reforge's learning content will continue to be offered independently while its product intelligence tools will integrate into Miro's platform as part of its Product Acceleration offering. Reforge CEO Brian Balfour joins Miro as Chief Growth Officer, and COO Tom Willerer joins as Chief Strategy Officer.

TicTac Group acquires Distrisoft / Sweden (France), Corporate Learning

TicTac Group, one of Europe's largest corporate digital learning providers, has acquired Distrisoft, a French distributor of leading learning software titles including Articulate and Vyond. The deal marks TicTac's entry into the French market and extends the group to 7 countries and more than 6,000 enterprise customers. TicTac expects combined revenues to exceed $50M in 2026 — an increase of more than 30%.

TimeEdit acquires Simac IDS / Sweden (Netherlands), Higher Education Operations Software

TimeEdit, a Swedish academic scheduling platform that helps universities build timetables and manage academic resources, has acquired Simac IDS, a Dutch and UK provider whose Presto Suite manages student attendance, proactive outreach, and engagement. The combination lets institutions link course scheduling directly to real-time student participation data — enabling earlier identification of at-risk students before they disengage. 

Buyouts

Warburg Pincus acquires Raptor Technologies for $1.8B / United States, K-12 Safety Software

Private equity firm Warburg Pincus has acquired a majority stake in Raptor Technologies from prior investor Thoma Bravo at a valuation of approximately $1.8 billion, with existing investor JMI Equity also reinvesting. Raptor is a school safety SaaS provider serving 60,000 schools across 55 countries, with products spanning visitor management, emergency operations, and safety training. Thoma Bravo originally acquired Raptor in 2021 and scaled the business through several add-on acquisitions before this exit.

LEMNIS acquires Mainstay / US, Student Success / AI Advising

Lemnis, a relatively new non-profit formed from the proceeds of HMH’s acquisition of NWEA, has acquired Mainstay, an AI-enabled student communication platform used by more than 200 colleges for student communications for enrollment, financial aid, and course completion. As part of the deal, Mainstay will convert from a Public Benefit Corporation to a nonprofit division of LEMNIS.  The acquisition of Mainstay marks LEMNIS’ second acquisition in two months, following its purchase of student-coaching provider InsideTrack in February.

Infosys acquires Optimum Healthcare IT / United States, Healthcare IT Services

Infosys has agreed to acquire Optimum Healthcare IT — a healthcare digital transformation consulting firm — for $465 million in an all-cash deal. Optimum specializes in EHR advisory, cloud migration, and workforce management for health systems. The deal marks an impressive exit for Achieve Partners, the education-focused investment firm that took a controlling stake in Optimum as the inaugural investment in its Workforce Fund in 2020.

Other Transactions

Kodree raises $10M Credit Facility / Ukraine, AI Tutor / PvX Partners (Lead)

Kodree offers a B2C learning platform to support structured learning paths for students. The platform aims to leverage AI and community features to improve engagement and personalization for their users. Notably, this credit facility is specifically for user acquisition, not product development—highlighting the current emphasis on distribution in EdTech.

What’s on your Whiteboard?

A conversation with Devry CEO Elise Awwad about AI use in the classroom

On School Phone Policies with Shannon Godfrey and Julia Gustafson, Founders of The Commons

News of Note

This section is intended to be more exploratory, a reflection of stories, ideas, and trends that I think are important for EdTech executives and investors to be aware of. 

Early Childhood

• Senator Jeff Merkey launches inquiry into private equity’s role in the childcare industry.

• States are using childcare waitlists to save on costs.

• Should you redshirt your kindergartener?

K12

• The theme of the year continues to be screentime, mostly in the classroom but also in everyday life. The most-shared news articles on this topic continue to be divisive, largely between the “hard-fors” and the “hard-againsts.”

  • The hard-fors: Melania and the robot and China’s AI in education experiment.

  • The hard-againsts: An Irish village attempting to make phone-free childhood a thing.

• I am more interested in the murky middle, where EdTech is neither the answer nor the problem and relational intelligence is paramount.

  • The murky middle asks questions: How are the teens are using chatbots?

  • And goes on quests rather than resting on its assumptions: The quest to build a better AI tutor.

  • Or flips the conversation in a new way: AI works in education when it makes learning harder, not easier.

• Also of note, how Democrats lost the plot on schools.

  • Related? Bring back the try-hard.

  • And the student athlete? 

• Non-classroom roles continue to be the fastest-growing area for school staffing.

Higher Ed

• What the university of the future will look like.

  • Except, are universities for how these new models could complicate their financial models?

• What’s inside the Education Department’s draft proposals to overhaul accreditation?

  • Related, the Education Department told Higher Ed to “buckle up.” The nation’s largest accreditor fired back.

• Halfway through the year, NIH has only obligated 15% of research funding.

  • Related, a year after deep cuts, can the institute for education sciences (IES) remake itself?

• Executive order aims to “fix” college sports.

• “Party is over” for Australian international enrollments.

Workforce

• Young people are falling behind, but not because of AI.

  • Related, why college graduates feel betrayed.

  • With the exception of the select few who leaned into AI while in school and now have investors paying their rent and bills so they can work more. 

  • And, apparently, the federal government, which is on a Gen Z hiring blitz.

Other

• AI perfected chess. Humans made it unpredictable again.

• India’s EdTech sector is starting to look like a two-horse race.

Looking for your next opportunity in education? Check out our W/A Jobs, which features 3,998 career opportunities from 316 organizations across the education industry. A few roles that we’re excited about from the past week:

• Everspring is hiring a Senior Vice President of Human Resources to lead and evolve the organization’s people function through their next stage of growth

• Timely is hiring a Product Manager to lead product discovery for a new area of Timely’s business

• 4Mativ is hiring a Vice President of District Services to lead implementation-oriented client partnerships

Whiteboard Advisors is the leading policy-related diligence partner for education investors, advising on most major private equity transactions in education over the past 15 years. Our specialty is translating complex policy dynamics into insights that inform decision-making. Reply to this email to learn more.