The Estonian edtech startup, Edumus, that places working professionals in schools as part-time teachers, has raised €180,000 from several Estonian and Finnish angel investors, including Peter Vesterbacka, to accelerate its growth and export its business model also to other countries.
Edumus is a marketplace and platform that enables specialists from different fields and industries to join schools as part-time teachers and give classes in a specific subject to one grade over the course of the school year.
“21st century schools need new kinds of teachers. We believe that scientists, developers, engineers and other specialists should be more involved in school education and share their real-life experience,” the Edumus’ founder, Maria Rahamägi, said.
The edtech startup she founded in 2019 just secured €180,000 in pre-seed funding to further develop their platform and expand significantly not only in Estonia, but also start operations abroad.
“Edumus’ training programme and facilitating software system helps to connect schools with professionals. This year, the platform will be launching in Ukraine, in addition to Estonia, with ongoing negotiations in Uzbekistan,” Rahamägi said.
Finnish and Estonian investors
The round of investment was raised from a group of local and foreign angel investors.
“Edumus is a great example of how the FinEst Bay Area region is spawning new globally relevant innovation in education. We’re very excited about the possibilities,” the Finnish investors Peter Vesterbacka – known for proposing the Tallinn-Helsinki tunnel – and Kustaa Valtonen, founding partners at Random Ventures, said in a statement.
Besides Vesterbacka and Valtonen, Edumus’ investors include Martin Henk, one of the founders of Pipedrive, and Märt Aro, the founder of Dream Apply.
A training programme developed by Finns
The edtech startup’s software platform supports the whole recruitment process of the new teachers – it allows professionals to sign up to the programme, match with local schools who need their competencies, contact each other and sign contracts.
“Developed by Finnish teacher training professionals, Edumus’ training programme is designed specifically for people without previous academic teaching experience and covers 21st century pedagogics and teaching methodologies,” the startup said in a statement.
At the beginning of the new school year in September, Edumus is planning to send up to 200 specialists to schools around Estonia as part-time teachers.
Cover: The Edumus’ team in Tallinn, Estonia. Photo by Edumus.
