Interactive learning platform for developers Educative raises $2.3M

Seattle-based interactive learning platform for software developers, Educative, today announces it has raised $2.3 million in seed funding from Trilogy Equity Partners, SK Ventures, and other angel investors.

“As software engineers ourselves we understand how critical it is for developers to stay current with the latest software languages and frameworks.”

Co-founded by veteran software engineers from Facebook and Microsoft Fahim ul Haq (CEO) and Naeem ul Haq (CTO), the Educative online platform was purpose-built for professional and aspiring software developers and features a highly interactive set of courses that encourages users to “learn by doing.”

The founders realized that the one size fits all tutorials and online forums that developers rely on to learn new languages and update their skills were not meeting the needs of today’s software engineers.

Unlike other interactive coding platforms, Educative users do not need to waste hours of their time configuring and deploying developer environments for a specific course and can instead dive right into a preconfigured virtual machine that includes a complete developer environment where users can immediately start learning through a combination of exercises and coding challenges.

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“As software engineers ourselves we understand how critical it is for developers to stay current with the latest software languages and frameworks so we created a learning environment that was designed specifically to meet their unique requirements of learning software languages,” said the CEO.

Educative currently hosts close to 50 coding courses with an emphasis on the most in-demand core programming languages and frameworks such as Java, Python, and React and is adding more every week.

Some of the features that distinguish Educative from other educational technology platforms include:

• Interactive User Experience: Every course is highly interactive and leverages a combination of lessons, quizzes, playgrounds, code snippets and illustrations to aid in the learning process. Users of the Educative platform have lessons continuously reinforced by coding in the browser environment and having their work regularly assessed to ensure they understand the material.
• No Set Up Required: All courses include a preconfigured virtual machine and a complete developer environment, enabling students to spend less time configuring and more time coding;
• Streamlined Publishing Platform: The platform includes a comprehensive publishing platform that makes it easy for authors to create and publish their courses in a standardized and interactive format. Whereas existing platforms can require an author to spend dozens of hours preparing their content for publication, Educative authors can build and publish their courses in a fraction of the time.

“All of the courses featured on the Educative site are designed to be fully interactive, embracing the notion that software developers learn best by doing and continuous feedback. Our platform also makes it easy for authors to create and publish their courses, providing them with an opportunity to share their expertise and generate revenue,” Fahim added.

More than 65,000 users from over 90 countries have registered on the Educative platform since it launched in March 2016 and more than 23,000 individual courses have already been purchased. Course prices range from free to $80 with an average price point of $29 per courses and all courses include lifetime access with updates. 

“The online learning space for software development is one of the fastest growing segments in technology today, yet the educational tools that programmers rely on to stay current have not kept pace with how software developers actually learn,” said Yuval Neeman, a partner at Trilogy Equity Partners who spent 16 years at Microsoft where he led the Developer Division.

“Developers learn best when they can actually play with the code and try things out for themselves. As someone who was responsible for large teams of software engineers, I immediately saw the value of the interactive tools Educative brings to the market. I believe their focused approach on creating a purpose-built education platform will empower a new generation of software developers,” added Neeman.