Research to Impact: Four Steps to Build a Successful Edtech Enterprise

EdSurge

Ed Gamba

January 26, 2024

If you build it, will it work? And how will you measure it? Those are vital questions for education technology innovators as they build ventures, secure funding and expand their impact. In a crowded marketplace with fierce competition for scarce dollars, savvy entrepreneurs embrace research to inspire, hone and scale their businesses.

After the pandemic, the edtech market exploded with new products and services, and investment flowed freely. But investors retrenched almost as suddenly as they emerged. Promises that your venture will transform literacy, math, social-emotional learning or professional development are no longer enough to secure funding. Your concept needs the backing of credible, empirical evidence that follows a research-to-practice trajectory.

It’s been a wild ride. When schools shuttered in the spring of 2020, more than 1 billion students worldwide shifted to online instruction in less than one month. Educators struggled to meet students’ needs without proper technology tools, training and infrastructure, and edtech innovators capitalized, introducing much-needed solutions.

Amid surging demand, bullish investors plowed money into the sector, and edtech capital funding surged 297 percent from $7 billion in 2019 to $20.8 billion in 2021.

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