But, What About After-School?

August 12 2020

We have many questions about schools reopening in the fall and about homeschooling, including physical education. The CDC recommends that children and adolescents ages 6 to 17 years do 60 minutes or more of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity daily. But what to do if you’re stuck indoors? Parents are scrambling to find virtual PE resources that help their kids stay healthy during a critical development period.

Even for the schools that are open, gym class will be limited or eliminated for millions of kids as schools go all-online or open with limited offerings this fall. Many schools that offer in-person instruction this fall re-imagined their gym classes as theory-only health and hygiene class.

While tech-savvy teachers have been hosting live workouts on apps like Facebook and Instagram, others wouldn't even know where to begin. Services like Microsoft Teams can simulate what it's like to be in a classroom, with one person talking and others taking notes and asking questions. But how do you simulate dodgeball?

Despite many parents and educators caught off guard, some startups are well-prepared. Many already made the pivot to a virtual summer camp and from there, they are optimistic about a virtual school year.

Marketplace platforms that continue to service and supplement pandemic learning, as well as education service providers, are well-positioned to expand their reach in the coming school year. As long-term remote learning sinks in with parents, providers should aim to expand the services they offer and deliver a more well-rounded package to families.

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Virtual Gym Class and After-School:

Sawyer is an online booking platform for organizers of children’s activities. Founded in 2015, Sawyer offers parents a marketplace for out-of-school learning activities offered by small- to medium-sized businesses, afterschool programs, and other providers of children’s educational programs. For program operators, Sawyer’s platform processes payments, provides discounts and payment plans, enrolls children, and manages class and camp offerings.

Calling itself a “Yelp for kids’ activities,” ActivityHero grew out of a listing of summer camps that started last year called Sign Up For Camp.com. In 2012 it expanded its focus to include shorter activities such as dance classes, art programs, and other after-school time-killers in its two pilot locations, the San Francisco Bay Area and Philadelphia. The service is now available in hundreds of cities in the U.S.

Kidville is an upscale early childhood enrichment franchise operating in major U.S. markets and internationally in Canada and China. With over 15 years of hands-on experience in the early childhood enrichment space, Kidville has designed robust proprietary programming from top educators in music, gym, art, dance, STEM, preschool, camp, and birthday parties. Named 'Best of' by New York Magazine, Kidville has serviced thousands of families over the years and has transformed their in-person experiences into interactive streaming content for children under nine on The Kidville Playground.

Facebook kicks off financial unit in another bid to capture digital payments, commerce

David Marcus, co-creator of the company’s Libra cryptocurrency project, will head Facebook Financial, an initiative to run all payments projects, including Facebook Pay, a feature it plans to build inside all of its apps.
[Read more].

Robinhood blows competitors out of the water

The 'retail bros' appear to be at it again as Robinhood joined the rest of the brokerage industry by publishing monthly trading data. The startup saw 4.3M daily average revenue trades (DARTs) in June, outperforming all of the publicly traded, incumbent brokerage firms. [Read more].

Since last week, PrivCo has added:
1,069 Updated Companies | 87 M&A Deals | 172 Funding Activities

Funding & Deal Highlights:

Video platform startup Mux announces it has raised $37M, bringing its total raised so far to $69M. Mux plans to use the proceeds to expand its product, sales, and marketing teams as it gears up for growth in the coming year.

Neovasc Inc. announces that it has entered into definitive agreements with certain healthcare-focused institutional investors for the sale of an aggregate of 4,532,772 common shares at a purchase price of US$2.77575 per common share in a registered direct offering priced at-the-market under the Nasdaq Capital Market rules for aggregate gross proceeds to the Company of approximately US$12.6M, before deducting placement agent’s fees and estimated expenses of the Offering payable by the Company. The Offering is expected to close on or about August 12, 2020, subject to customary closing conditions.

Mattrix Technologies, Inc., a US-based startup developing groundbreaking AMOLED backplane solutions for the flat-panel display industry, announces that JSR Corporation has closed a second investment into the company. The $1.5M investment will be used in part to support the joint development of solution-based conductive inks for use in a new class of backplane transistor that promises to bring the true-to-life viewing experience of ultra-premium OLED products to everyday consumers.

Skillshare, the online learning platform, raises $66M in additional funding from investors, including Union Square Ventures, Amasia, Burda Principal Investments, Spero Ventures, and OMERS Growth Equity. Founded by Malcolm Ong and Michael Karnjanaprakorn in 2010, Skillshare has now raised a total of $116.8M in reported equity funding.

Uniswap raises $11M in funding from investors including SV, Paradigm, Version One, Variant, Parafi Capital, SV Angel, and A.Capital.

Insurtech startup Buckle lands $31M in its Series A round.

Nasdaq-listed website building company Wix.com Ltd. takes advantage of its COVID-19 era blossoming to raise some easy money. The Israel-based company is embarking on a major $500M financing round in convertible senior notes in a private offering.

Stix, started in Philadelphia, raises a $1.3M seed round from BDMI, Rogue Women’s Fund and Vamos Ventures, as well as Johnson & Johnson Innovation via its investment in Founders Factory New York.

Tetra Insights offers a data platform for businesses to learn more about their customers. Active Capital led a $1.5M seed investment into the Boulder, Colorado-based startup, with HNVR Technology Investment Management also participating.

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