Technology deficits in European K12 have little to do with the leading edge of edtech, VR/AR, personalised learning, et al. In many countries, including Europe’s largest economy and Sdui’s home turf Germany, administrative systems and processes have yet to be digitised at all.
Only 1 in 3 German K12 students has access to online learning platforms, that’s as against the OECD average of 1 in 2, which is shocking in itself. In spite of the €5 billion Digital pact for schools, introduced in 2019, take-up has been sluggish at best, but things are improving and governments are being proactive.
Though addressing this challenge was initially a very German problem for Daniel and his team when he started his company aged only 20, it was clear that across Europe, with similar challenges existing - only 27% of schools with access to digital platforms in the EU - one day a leader would emerge to provide a school operating system to help digitise the educational institutions of the EU at large. At Brighteye we believe that Sdui is this leader. Sdui now represents 11% of the market share in Germany, 15% in Belgium and 5% in Switzerland. Covering messaging, payments, scheduling, SIS and MIS services, among others, Sdui is building a comprehensive suite of products to serve institutions of every size, and schools and entire regions of public schools are adopting their suite apace as the de facto European School OS.
Besides the large opportunity set in broad patterns of digitisation, we also saw in Daniel a unique founder with drive, insight and determination that was extremely impressive in a first-time founder who started this first company of his fresh out of school. He has been able to mobilise an extremely talented and experienced team across product, sales, marketing, tech and management that are helping him construct the juggernaut he has the ambition to build.
We are excited for the future, Sdui!
The leadership team at Sdui: Founder and CEO Daniel Zacharias in front.