Austin, Texas has rapidly emerged as a notable center for Ed Tech enterprises. Benefitting from the tailwinds of a decades’ long expansion in Texas, a home-grown talent pipeline at UT-Austin, and a growing reputation as a regional tech hub (The New York Times recently profiled the booming "Silicon Hills" economy), the state capital is a natural fit for Ed Tech enterprises and talent.
There are now more than 138,000 tech-related jobs in the Austin metropolitan region, about 14 percent of the total jobs in the area. Ray Perryman, an economist in Waco, estimated that the tech sector pumps about $31 billion into the area’s overall economy, about 35 percent of the total. – New York Times
While still smaller than coastal tech metropolises, Austin enjoys cost-of-living and cost-of-business advantages that should provide fuel for growth for years to come. For instance, cost of living estimates peg Austin as 134% less expensive than San Francisco and 61% less expensive than New York City--with the margin on housing costs even wider.
<50 Employees | Career Page
Headquartered in the Dallas areas, Eduphoria maintains sizable offices in Austin. This firm provides integrated, web-based apps designed to assist in virtually every aspect of the school day.
Eduphoria develops tools for core K-12 workflows including lesson planning, student progress monitoring, administration, and collaboration between educators. This suite of tools is collectively designed to allow educators to spend less time on cumbersome administrative tasks and more time interacting with students.
<50 Employees
Hello World brings professional-grade computer science education programming to the K-12 market. Provisioned through in-person, after school classes run by experienced technology professionals, this programming includes a complete course catalogue building up from Fundamentals and Mobile App development to AI and Cybersecurity.
A project-based learning approach seeks to help students master concepts in high-demand technology fields, with coursework modeled on real college and graduate-level computer science and engineering programs. Hello World sees the ultimate goal of education through real-world projects as the fostering of autonomous lifelong learners.
1000-5000 Employees | Career Page
Headquartered in Boston, MA, Houghton Mifflin is one of two major global Education corporations with a major Austin presence, a sure sign of the area’s relevance to the global industry. With roots as a textbook publisher, HMH today maintains a diverse offering of print and digital learning products (including iconic e-learning brands like Carmen Sandiego and The Oregon Trail).
In addition to its longtime business line developing and marketing both print and digital textbooks, HMH also offers targeting learning services in areas like reading, math, and bilingual education.
<50 Employees
Technology is commanding increasing portions of educational institutions’ budgets. Too often, however, these investments are inadequately supported with meaningful metrics for evaluating the depth and quality of student engagement with new technology platforms.
PAPERbasket seeks to address these problems with analytics designed to give educators a deeper, data-driven look into how students are actually interacting with technologies. Deeper behavioral understanding and live tracking not only facilitate higher quality service delivery, but tighter integration of technology investments with demonstrated educational value.
201-500 Employees | Career Page Link
PeopleAdmin markets web-based technology solutions for Talent Management that are built from the ground up to focus on the unique needs of educational institutions (including Higher Ed and K12).
Acquired by PowerSchool in 2018, PeopleAdmin’s tools provide for a streamlined hiring process, candidate communication tools, onboarding aids, and reporting and analytics features to rationalize ongoing talent management decisions according to broader institutional goals.
<50 Employees
SchoolLinks works to streamline and optimize academic advising, using machine learning-based approaches to simplify and demystify the often labyrinthine advising process. Working with advisors to promote both college and career readiness, SchoolLinks provides a centralized tool for managing core advising workflows including scholarship research and applications, recommendation letters solicitation, career interest inventories and exploration, resume building, volunteer hour tracking, college research, and outcome tracking.
SchoolLinks leverages insights generated by behavioral Machine Learning analysis to not only help students excel, but provide administrators with more granular insight into the factors determining college and career success for graduates.
<50 Employees
From organizing field-trips to setting up school events, PreK-12 education presents consistent demands for coordinating parents, volunteers, students, and staff in a huge variety of events and activities. SignUp.com, formerly known as VolunteerSpot, was founded in 2009 to provide a digital tool designed to streamline this coordination work.
Their platform is web-based and free to use, providing tools for every phase of event coordination, from sign up to financial contributions. Already boasting a thirteen million plus user base, SignUp.com is used for both in-school and extracurricular activities.
50-200 employees | Career Page Link
Formed through an acquisition in 2008, Abrams Learning trends develops learning materials for students in the PreK-Grade 5 range.
Ranging from targeted supplements in areas like reading, vocabulary, and math to comprehensive curriculum packages, Abrams Learning offerings include both digital resources and foundational classroom-aids like curriculum plans with supporting activities and teacher’s guides. Abrams puts a premium on fun, intuitive solutions that can be catered to the individual learning styles of students.
50-200 Employees | Career Page Link
Founded in 2011, Civitas provides technology tools and consulting services across the full range of post-secondary support systems that play a role in determining educational outcomes, with a particular focus on student advising, scheduling, and career planning. Partnered with nearly 400 post-secondary institutions across the country, Civitas’ work centers on making a measurable impact on enrollment, graduation and persistence rates through data-driven tools that help manage students on an individual basis while facilitating broader strategic insights into the ground-level factors influencing student success.
<50 Employees | Career Page Link
Skills Fund seeks to bring a greater degree of accountability and transparency to outcomes from skills-based training programs through its student financing and quality assurance platform.
This platform lets users search for skills-based learning programs filtered by geography and subject (programs covered include coding, data science, dental/medical assistant training, and commercial licensing training). From there, users can see clearly communicated financing terms and use a loan calculator to explore potential options provided by pre-vetted ethical lenders.
<50 Employees | Career Page Link
Owned by LendingTree after a summer 2018 acquisition, Student Loan Hero provides a comprehensive toolkit for helping individuals manage student loan debt. Users can sync private and federal loan data to facilitate management of multiple loans from multiple lenders at a single location. From there, Student Loan Hero can provide in depth analysis, advice on repayment options, and income-based repayment calculators.
These tools are free to use, with Student Loan Hero generating revenue through advertisers it strategically promotes to users. Financial institutions promoted by the firm are carefully vetted, ensuring users have access to ethical lenders and the tools needed to develop an individualized strategy for repayment.
<50 Employees | Career Page Link
Upswing aims to help its clients reduce student attrition rates through three-pronged online support in advising, tutoring, and mentoring. They currently support over 700,000 students with 24/7 access to their platform.
These services, along with predictive analytics and a dedicated support professional (“Higher Education Retention Officer”), are delivered through an integrated online Virtual Learning Center. Included tools range from logistical aids like an advising scheduler tool to tutoring technologies like a virtual whiteboard backed by real-time audio/video chat.
<50 Employees
Inspired by founder Felix Ortiz III’s efforts to find a rewarding career path after leaving the US military, Virdis focuses on the vital link between post-secondary education and job placement. Viridis’ mission centers on leveraging an algorithmic approach to helping students identify and pursue careers based on their skills, interests, and job market metrics.
Skill tracking tools help students and supporting administrators track their progress toward their chosen career pathway through a “Universal Skill Passport” as they make their way through school, integrating career-driven skill-building with academic planning at a more granular level than is typically possible through traditional advising arrangements.
50-200 Employees | Career Page Link
Aceable’s business centers on mobile-first delivery of certification-based learning programs including programs focused on driver’s ed requirements for multiple states, adult driver’s ed courses, and defensive driving/driver’s improvement courses. They’re actively working to expand into other certification verticals, currently continuing education for real estate professionals.
Based out of downtown Austin, Aceable is a great example of how Ed Tech enterprises with a Lifelong Learning focus are expanding their market far outside of traditional in-school educational curricula. Their courses are available both through organizational packages and for sale directly to the public.
50-200 Employees | Career Page Link
As you may guess from its name, this company focuses on helping professionals build skills en route to certification in cloud-related technology clusters. Course offerings include industry-leading technology stacks like AWS (Amazon Web Services), Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure.
Founded in 2015, Cloud Guru has earned over 750,000 customers across 181 countries. Their courses are marketed both directly to professionals and to organizations looking to develop internal cloud expertise.
<50 Employees | Career Page Link
Austin Coding Academy provides intensive instruction designed to jumpstart careers in web development. Two distinct skill tracks (full-stack JavaScript and C#/.NET) are offered through courses taught by experienced industry professionals.
Career-focused skills are supported by career services to help find industry employment after completing the 8-week program. Uniquely, Austin Coding Academy offers evening classes that cater to working professionals (many intensive programming learning programs require full-time daily coursework).
<50 Employees
Interplay Learning focuses on developing learning solutions geared for the unique needs of technical training in trades like HVAC, Electrical, Solar, Energy Auditing, and Manufacturing.
Interplay’s past solutions focused on online, 3D-simulations of field scenarios, but they have begun rapidly expanding into Virtual Reality-based programs. These simulations are backed by video courses on both relevant applied science background and trade-specific skills.
50-200 Employees | Career Page Link
SchooX’s SaaS business model centers on providing a uniquely comprehensive Talent Development Platform for organizations. That means integrating a suite of learning tools with a broader toolkit including a content management system, performance analysis dashboards, social collaboration features, and onboarding/succession planning resources.
Ultimately, they’re trying move past traditional notions of Learning Management Systems by de-siloing business-driven learning and connecting it more thoughtfully to broader Talent Management practices. The SchooX platform can also measure the impact of this more integrated delivery model through built in features for measuring outcomes relative to KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators), including understanding the complex interdependencies between training types.
200-500 Employees | Career Page Link
Founded in 1997 as an online traffic school venture, 360 Training today helps professionals and their employers manage compliance and certification requirements over a diverse set of subject matters. They manage a global presence from their Austin HQ, with 4 million users taking advantage of 6000+ course offerings in 67 different countries.
Organized into industry-specialized teams, 360training offers domain knowledge on core business expertise clusters like instructional design, multimedia engineering, IT, customer support, and content development. They offer learning solutions that can be delivered discretely or customized and integrated with existing enterprise systems.
50-200 Employees | Career Page Link
A combination of a shared workspace and incubator, startups apply for membership in Capital Factory, which provides not only office space but access to mentors and experts in fundraising, recruiting, IP, and other vital subject areas for entrepreneurs and new companies. In addition to networking opportunities with potential investors, Capital Factory lets members use month-to-month leases, helping to maintain cost management agility for these young enterprises.
30000+ Global Employees | Career Page Link
A major global education company headquartered in London, UK, Pearson maintains a sizable presence in Austin (along with dozens of other cities internationally). With products in the K12, Post-Secondary, and Lifelong Learning markets, Pearson is involved with almost every aspect of the Ed Tech industry.
Pearson’s massive set of offerings include consulting services, online e-learning products, and teacher/administrator technology aids.