A backer of several unicorns has invested in Mindstone, an EdTech platform rethinking online education to help people learn faster and remember more.
Mattias Ljungman helped fund Klarna, Viagogo, Peakon and ClimateCorp at the earliest stage and is now backing the first post-exit venture from SuperAwesome founder Joshua Wohle.
The online child safety company was snapped up by Fortnite creator Epic Games earlier this year.
Mindstone has also launched a crowdfunding campaign to give supporters ‘the opportunity to democratise and invest in the future of learning’.
Moonfire Ventures founder Ljungman’s pre-launch commitment is joined by Techstars managing director Eamonn Carey, among others, with a total of more than £600,000 already raised.
Founded in 2020, Mindstone allows experts from all walks of life to create engaging courses, built using the best pre-existing online articles, podcasts, and videos, helping people learn faster and remember more about a wide range of topics, from Astrophysics to Zoology.
“Online education is broken. Providers and courses too often simply replicate traditional in-person teaching methods in an online environment, and are typically bound to static, one-size-fits-all curricula,” said Wohle.
“We are rethinking online education from the ground up to solve this problem. The internet is the greatest knowledge bank in human history, and our platform makes it as easy for anyone to build a course from existing high-quality online material as it is to curate a playlist on Spotify.
“Meanwhile, our compound learning approach – course content evolves based on questions and feedback from learners to continuously enhance the experience – puts learners themselves at the heart of everything, as they should be.
“To have investors of the calibre of Mattias and Eamonn come on board at this early stage is a huge vote of confidence in the importance of what we’re doing here and the ability of the team to deliver the impact we know will result if we succeed.
“Mindstone is all about democratising access to learning and teaching, so a crowdfunding campaign at this stage made perfect sense – we’re excited to invite everyone to join us in this round and on our journey.”
Mindstone already has several well-known organisations and individuals using the platform to create courses, including The Bitcoin Association (Bitcoin Basics), Landscape VC (How To Raise Funding For Your Startup), Flown (How To Do Deep Work) Radix (An Overview of Radix DLT), The Body Collective (Women’s Health: How To Live Your Best Life After 40) and Seed Legals (How to Launch an Option Program).
In addition, several online influencers have contributed courses, including Jack Edwards, a lifestyle, travel, and literature blogger (How To Be A Better Reader); ‘studytuber’ Unjaded Jade (How to Self Study); Vix Meldrew (How to Build Your Personal Brand on Instagram); and Eleanor Neale (How to Research a True Crime Case).
Mindstone has also recently signed a commercial partnership with one of the world’s most widely-respected publishers, Harvard Business Review. HBR will be one of the first media companies to work with Mindstone.
Jim Bodor, MD of digital product strategy at HBR.org, said: “We are excited to see if Mindstone’s innovative tools add a new layer of functionality to HBR.org for our users.”
Ljungman added: “I am always on the hunt for the next category-creating disruptor, and when Joshua first described Mindstone to me, I knew I had to invest. He and the team at Mindstone have put the science of learning at the core of everything they do – creating a new way to approach education that is truly tailored to the individual learner.
“That rigor, combined with accessibility, could see Mindstone transform how we learn and manage knowledge on the scale that Wikipedia has done over the past two decades. I am excited to see this crowdfund affirm Mindstone’s potential and supercharge its mission to make learning better for everyone.”
Mindstone has raised £1.6 million to date in a seed round led by Ljungman’s Moonfire Ventures and including The Fund, Zanichelli Venture, Nex.D, and a number of angels, including Wohle’s former co-founders at SuperAwesome.
The platform is already available on desktop, iOS, and Android – the crowdfunding will support an increased focus on mobile, as well as further research and development, hiring, and commercial partnerships.
Crowdfunding