Dive Brief:
- Entrepreneur Paul Freedman hopes to connect colleges and universities with ed tech startups offering products they actually need.
- The Chronicle of Higher Education reports Freedman will serve as “translator” between the two entities, finding out what colleges and universities want and then directing them to start-ups that already exist or creating new ones to fill the gaps.
- Entangled Ventures has $2.5 million in seed funding and has already created one company and invested in half a dozen others, according to the article.
Dive Insight:
Funding is flowing freely to education technology ventures these days and it has created a market where new gadgets and innovations are coming faster than schools can use them. Freedman’s latest venture seems to create a direct connection between colleges and universities interested in innovating and the companies that can help them do that. It would bring institutions closer to the design phase instead of marketing to them only after a product is ready.
Freedman, some might remember, is behind the failed experiment of Ivy Bridge College, which offered online associates degrees through Tiffin University until accreditors forced its closure. Freedman’s company, Altius Education, partnered with Tiffin to run Ivy Bridge.