LearnLaunch Accelerator and ETS are proud to announce the first round of investments for the ETS Accelerate Program

BOSTON, Sept. 17, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- LearnLaunch Accelerator and ETS® announce the first cohort of edtech startups from the new ETS® Accelerate program. Building on the success of last year's ETS investment in LearnLaunch Accelerator, this new collaboration combines extensive go-to-market expertise from LearnLaunch Accelerator with unparalleled knowledge of educational research and measurement from ETS.

The cohort includes eight companies in two themes. They range in maturity from early stage to beginning to scale, and represent four countries and four states.

English language learning: Beetools, Language Zen, and Speak Agent.
Skills for a new economy: Boldly, Forefront, Mindprint Learning, Spinndle, and Thimble.

"These themes, English language learning and skills for a new economy, represent major areas of change, challenge, growth, and investment in education and development," said Richard Varn, ETS Venture Partner Lead. "ETS is uniquely positioned to support the selected companies in addressing these themes and together we believe we can have a major impact on learning and opportunities for our customers."

The program begins at LearnLaunch in Boston. During that time, each company will be supported by a group of senior industry experts serving as 'Accelerator Partners' as they advance through personalized curricula and meet with industry experts.

ETS will play a pivotal role in supporting each company during the latter half of the program, including a mix of access to additional industry experts, a dedicated business development team, and world class research and capabilities. By expanding into and supporting the education startup community, this initiative provides ETS an opportunity to further meet its mission to advance quality and equity in education for individuals worldwide.

"Education is a proven path to inclusion and a bridge to opportunity. The diversity of our founders continues to prove this. Companies in this cohort are majority founded by women and represent a wide range of diverse backgrounds," said Jean Hammond, Co-Founder & General Partner, LearnLaunch Accelerator. "Slow adoption of innovation and a lack of valid evidence connecting edtech to desired outcomes continue to hinder the physical to digital transformation of this industry.  Working closely with innovators and pairing them with the remarkable research capabilities of ETS can begin to model new levels of integrated, fair, and effective systems."

Each company will exit the program with specific next steps to scale and a clearer understanding of how to communicate with buyers. The program will culminate at Demo Day, held in conjunction with the LearnLaunch Across Boundaries Conference on January 30th and 31st in Boston.

For more information, please visit: www.learnlaunch.com/accelerate

About ETS
At ETS, we advance quality and equity in education for people worldwide by creating assessments based on rigorous research. ETS serves individuals, educational institutions, businesses and government agencies by providing customized solutions for teacher certification, English language learning, and elementary, secondary and postsecondary education, and by conducting education research, analysis and policy studies. Founded as a nonprofit in 1947, ETS develops, administers and scores more than 50 million tests annually — including the TOEFL^® and TOEIC ^® tests, the GRE ^® tests and The Praxis Series ^® assessments — in more than 180 countries, at over 10,000 locations worldwide. www.ets.org

About LearnLaunch Accelerator 
LearnLaunch Accelerator is the leading edtech startup program. We run two investment-focused programs as well as personalized bootcamps for edtech companies across early ed, K-12, higher ed, and workforce. Using our unique mix of milestone-based funding, 1x1 venture partner & mentor support, we work with impact-driven entrepreneurs on achieving product-market fit and developing scaling strategies. Our relationship-driven approach supports funding, partnerships, and growth for the long-term. For more information, visit https://learnlaunch.com/accelerator.

LearnLaunch Accelerator is licensee of LearnLaunch, Inc., a 501c3 non profit dedicated to catalyzing innovation in the education sector. For more information, visit: https://learnlaunch.org.

SOURCE LearnLaunch Accelerator

Related Links

https://www.learnlaunch.com/accelerator