CanopyLAB raises €2.5m to accelerate international growth
HELSINKI, 26 Jan 2021
CanopyLAB raises €2.5m to accelerate international growth
Sparkmind.vc leads €1.1m equity round supported by €1.4 in other financing for CanopyLAB.
Learning sector-focused venture capital company, Sparkmind.vc, has led a €1.1m equity funding round for CanopyLAB, a Danish provider of AI-powered social learning platform and learning community serving K12, NGO, and corporate clients. Existing and new investors including Jørgen Balle Olesen and The Index Project also participated. To complement the equity raised, CanopyLAB has also received €1.4m venture loan and soft money from the Danish Growth Fund and Innovation Fund Denmark.
The raised capital is focused on accelerating CanopyLAB’s commercial growth. It will enable the business to pursue new opportunities especially in Asia and Latin America funding key hires in business development and marketing.
This investment is the fifth from Sparkmind.vc’s €45m learning-focused venture capital fund. It follows 2020 backing for Fuzu, School Day, Kide Science, and Playvation.
Kai Talas of Sparkmind.vc commented: “Digital learning platforms are in a central role in today’s learning ecosystems and CanopyLAB’s offering stands out from the market. With its built-in social network structure and AI powered adaptiveness as well content cooperation with more than 100 NGOs the company is uniquely positioned to drive improved learning outcomes through enhanced engagement, motivation and retention. We are also very impressed by the CanopyLAB team and the market reach achieved. We’re excited to build on the significant momentum the company has already generated.”
CanopyLAB’s research-based social elearning platform, The Canopy, is being used in over 200 schools by more than 100 000 students and by close to 30 companies such as the DanishAssociation of Electricians, Copenhagen School of Entrepreneurship and TEINTE Educación. Alongside the platform, CanopyLAB runs a learning community, The Lab, enabling teachers and students to exchange ideas and take free courses based on materials from more than 100 NGOs. The courses cover several highly relevant global topics such as climate change, health, and the sustainable development goals. The Lab has more than 25 000 teachers and close to 150 000 students as users. The geographical market focus of the educational institutions business is LatAm, Africa, and Asia while corporate sales are primarily focused on Europe.
Sahra-Josephine Hjorth, CanopyLAB’s Co-Founder & CEO added: “We’re excited that this new investment allows us to rapidly accelerate our global sales and marketing activities. In 2020 we captured a noticeable portion of the market in Latam and this capital enables us to replicate our rollout in Africa and Asia. As an edtech focused investor Sparkmind.vc is an ideal partner for us, because they understand scaling edtech in the SaaS category and will enable us to learn with and from the unique groups of edtechs they have already invested in.”
About CanopyLAB
CanopyLAB is an edtech company founded in Denmark. It introduces new engaging and collaborative learning methods to meet the 21st century skills gap. Based on one platform, CanopyLAB offers both white label solutions for educational institutions and organizations and a free, global learning solution for leading NGOs focusing on Climate Action & Sustainability, the SDGs, Health, Sexual& Reproductive Rights, Entrepreneurship, and Democracy.
David Pines, COO, david@canopylab.com+1 (610) 283-4085
About Sparkmind.vc
Sparkmind.vc is the first Nordic venture capital company exclusively focused on the learning sector. The company invests from Seed to Series B stages in teams transforming how the world learns. Its investments are focused on solutions that improve learning outcomes, increase access and efficiency of learning or use data insight to better support educators and learners.
KaiTalas, Partner, kai@sparkmind.vc, +358 40179 20 44