Female-founded Estonian startup Edumus, which places working professionals in schools as part-time teachers, has raised €180K from renowned Estonian and Finnish angel investors to accelerate its growth. Involving professionals in schools will help to address the teacher shortage and enrich secondary education with real-life experience and skills.
According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), 69 million teachers must be recruited to achieve universal primary and secondary education by 2030.
“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. Edumus’ training program and facilitating software system helps to connect schools with professionals. This year, Edumus platform will be launching in Ukraine in addition to Estonia, with ongoing negotiations in Uzbekistan,” says Maria Rahamägi, the 28 year-old female founder of Edumus.
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.
The edtech startup, which aims to tackle the global teacher shortage, has just secured €180,000 in pre-seed funding to further develop their platform, expand significantly in Estonia, and start operations in Ukraine and Uzbekistan. This 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,” commented Peter Vesterbacka and Kustaa Valtonen, founding partners at Random Ventures.
Edumus’ software platform supports the whole recruitment process of the new teachers – it allows professionals to sign up to the program, match with local schools who need their competencies, contact each other and sign contracts. Developed by Finnish teacher training professionals, Edumus’ training program is designed specifically for people without previous academic teaching experience and covers 21st century pedagogics and teaching methodologies.
“The education industry has stayed fundamentally unchanged for the last 100 years, and there is a constant lack of innovation and passion. I see that Edumus can bridge both of these gaps – firstly, solve the challenge of the lack of teachers, and secondly, align the in-class theory with real life experiences from practitioners,” says Kristjan Raude, Edumus’ mentor and the President of Estonian Business Angels Network (EstBAN).
Launched in Estonia in 2019, in just two years the education initiative has already sent over 40 specialists to schools. This September, Edumus will send up to 200 more specialists to schools around Estonia as part-time teachers.
Estonia is proudly stating itself as an Education Nation, ranking 1st in Europe according to the latest PISA performance test results.
About Edumus
Estonian-born global education initiative Edumus invites working professionals to contribute to education by teaching one subject to one grade in one school for a full academic year. The program is voluntary for teachers, but they are supported with teacher training and a leadership skills development program as well as a network of mentors. Besides Peter Vesterbacka (Rovio, Slush) and Kustaa Valtonen (Random Ventures, Finest Bay Area), Edumus’ investors include Martin Henk (Pipedrive), Märt Aro (Dream Apply, Nordic EdTech Forum “N8”), among others.
