{"id":747906,"date":"2013-04-23T17:09:54","date_gmt":"2013-04-23T21:09:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/?p=633683"},"modified":"2013-04-23T17:09:54","modified_gmt":"2013-04-23T21:09:54","slug":"pioneering-ed-tech-accelerator-imaginek12-ups-startup-funding-to-100k-each","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/747906","title":{"rendered":"Pioneering ed tech accelerator ImagineK12 ups startup funding to $100k each"},"content":{"rendered":"

As we\u2019ve noted before, ed tech accelerators<\/a> have been popping up all over<\/a> in the past few months. But Imagine K12<\/a> — a two-year-old startup program often referred to as the \u201cY Combinator of ed tech\u201d — just upped the ante for the competition.<\/p>

Instead of receiving $20,000 upon acceptance into ImagineK12, startups will now receive $100,000 each, thanks to a new Start Fund, the accelerator said. The newly-created Start Fund is funded by big name Silicon Valley types, including Y Combinator founder Paul Graham, Yahoo co-founder David Filo, Angela Filo, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner and Chegg CEO Dan Rosensweig, as well as the NewSchools Venture Fund and GSV Asset Management.\u00a0Startups will receive up to $20,000 from ImagineK12 and a convertible note for $80,000 from the Start Fund.<\/p>

Since launching in early 2011, the accelerator said its 39 startups have raised more than $30 million in funding and it claims that its products are used by more than 10 percent of U.S. teachers.<\/p>

Tim Brady, a co-founder of Imagine K12, said their goal is to not only give accepted ed tech startups a longer runway for adoption, but to make education more welcoming to entrepreneurs.<\/p>

\u201cIt has a reputation as a difficult sector,” he said. \u201cOne of our over-arching goals is to make entrepreneurship in education as attractive as it is in other sectors.”<\/p>

While $100,000 would certainly be difficult to turn down, other ed tech accelerators offering less capital aren’t without their selling points for aspiring education entrepreneurs. For obvious reasons, Silicon Valley is a great place to build a company, but education startups could also be well-served by building networks in other parts of the country.<\/p>

Socratic Labs<\/a> and Kaplan’s new TechStars-powered ed tech accelerator<\/a>, both of which are based in New York City, offer education entrepreneurs the chance to experiment within the country’s largest K-12 school district and in the backyard of major content companies. And Boston-based LearnLaunchX<\/a>\u00a0is in close proximity to plenty of publishers, colleges and universities.<\/p>
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