Techcrunch: Edtech investment jumps past half billion in Q1 2014

Crunching the numbers, Techcrunch reports that investment in edtech startups is more than $500 million in Q1 already. That's the "single biggest quarter for capital committed to the sector in the past five years," writes Jonathan Sheiber.

What's fueling the interest in this "old school" sector? Kaplan EdTech Accelerator managing director Don Burton (with Kaplan's program partner Techstars) explains:

“It’s interesting because public education hasn’t changed that much in 150 to 200 years and there had been almost no technology going into it. It’s not only that there’s this huge behemoth sector of the economy that spends $1.2 trillion on educating kids, but that it’s old, it’s long in the tooth and it’s bound to get disrupted.”

Sheiber explains that investment falls in a few areas: technologies for K-12 and for secondary education, professional and continuing education services, and consumer-facing products.

"Investors now are backing companies that are making a massive push to sell directly into the U.S. public and private education system. Expenditures in K-12 software is one of the fastest-growing sectors in the market,” Jonathan writes.

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Read Jonathan's full story, "Education Technology Startups Raised Over Half A Billion Dollars In Q1," on Techcrunch (3/24/14).