Put a Light On
w.215 | EdTech Market, Macro Trends from Pershing, Seed Market Predictions, Community Congratulations
Dear Friends,
Happy November from Austin. It’s still 78 degrees here as I write this afternoon. Slightly different from the snowstorms that hit the Midwest last week.
I have a few great, data-backed reports to share this week. Enjoy.
Today's Contents:
Good Reads: Sensible Investing
Community Corner
Song of the Week: Put a Light On
Good Reads: Sensible Investing
EdTech Market Update - Oppenheimer, November 2023. This is the most comprehensive institutional report on the public and private education technology market. To summarize:
Sector-focused VCs remain focused primarily on earlier, smaller rounds as peak market valuations make mid and late-stage rounds challenging.
My comments:
Some of the venture funding listed from 2023 have already failed; for example, Bitwise Industries filed for Chapter 11 in June.
Winners this year in the public market were Duolingo (D2C EdTech, Coursera (still disrupting college), and Stride (virtual charter schools, i.e., good for homeschooling). I wouldn’t rate Nerdy; it’s an unprofitable tutoring company that SPAC’ed in 2020 and is up from a low base, but at $3.1/share, it remains 66% off its public debut.
Investor Advisory Committee on Financial Markets from Pershing Square Capital. Great set of macro indicator data. Headline: Economic growth has been resilient; however, growth is likely to slow going forward.
Big long-term trend: Growth of India’s Middle Class
“The size of the middle class in India is expected to rise from 432M people in 2020-21 to 715M (47%) in 2030-31 to 1.02B, 61% of India's projected population of 1.66B in 2047.
Navigating the New Normal: Insights from the Cowboy Fall 2023 Investor Offsite on the Seed Stage VC Market. These are consensus predictions, but it's good to see them logged.
Community Corner
We haven’t had this section in a while, but there were two notable achievements in my friend group this week that I want to celebrate.
Todd van Stolk-Riley was promoted to Managing Director at Goldman Sachs. Todd has no social media presence other than Venmo and has an IYKYK profile. He is one of the smartest, most thoughtful investors that I know.
Lexi Novitske has been investing in the African tech ecosystem for over a decade. This week, she announced the close of the new $205M Norrsken22 fund to back founders across the continent. This is the second-largest venture fund focused on the region.
It’s super energizing to see the recognition of two incredible and impressive people who have been building and delivering for years.
Song of the Week: Put a Light On
Video on YouTube.
I like the vibes of this song and have been listening to it this week. Reading through the YouTube comments, a few stuck out: “This song reminds me of the times when life was simple” and “It's just building bit by bit, then bam, it hits you in full-on instrumental mini-bliss. It's a happy kind of track.”
“Put a Light On” by Generationals
The miles are way too long
The stars are way too bright
You gonna wait too long
To run away tonight
Don't need to burn
The way they do
Going home tonight
Put a light on me, my blue sky's playing
Selfie of the Week
Obviously, this doesn’t look like me, but it’s the best my prompt engineering could do on Dall-E. Please send me the best you can do for yourself, or you can play the Dall-E game with your family for Thanksgiving. Just an idea.
Thanks for reading, friends. Please always be in touch.
As always,
Katelyn