McGraw Hill Buys TeachFX as Ed-Tech Capital Keeps Flowing

McGraw Hill has acquired TeachFX, an AI-native instructional coaching platform, with terms undisclosed, the companies announced.

The deal expands McGraw Hill's professional learning business. Company officials said the acquisition will support teachers, improve curriculum implementation, and drive classroom impact.

TeachFX uses AI and voice recognition technology to automatically record and analyze classroom audio via a phone or laptop. The platform then delivers personalized feedback on student-versus-teacher talk time and questioning techniques, helping teachers sharpen their practice and make classrooms more engaging. It also provides aggregated classroom insights to surface instructional trends and offers an integration with Claude for Teachers, turning classroom feedback into lesson plans for users with access to both tools.

"TeachFX gives McGraw Hill a powerful new way to support educators and help them become their best professionally," said Jana Thompson, interim president of McGraw Hill's K–12 segment. "By adding scalable instructional coaching to our portfolio, we can help educators strengthen their practice, give district leaders more actionable insights, and create a stronger bridge between instructional materials and classroom impact."

TeachFX reported raising a $10 million Series A in 2022, led by Reach Capital with Osage Venture Partners, Pearson Ventures, Brighteye Ventures, and other angel investors participating.

The deal follows McGraw Hill's recent acquisition of Teachally, an AI-powered platform that helps educators customize McGraw Hill's curriculum to their classroom needs. Two AI coaching deals in short order signal that the publisher is assembling a stack that connects its curriculum directly to what happens in classrooms.

Brighteye Ventures Secures $72 Million

European ed-tech venture firm Brighteye Ventures has secured a $72 million first close of its third fund, bringing total assets under management to $245 million.

The firm will target what it calls the "HumanOS" — technology that helps people learn, work, and adapt — plus AI-driven productivity tools across healthcare, education, infrastructure, cybersecurity, and climate. One of Fund III's first investments is Imagi, a tool that helps schools build AI fluency.

"The defining opportunity of the AI era is not replacing humans with machines," said Ben Wirz, founding partner at Brighteye. "It is expanding what humans can do with machines … Our conviction is that the next generation of category-defining companies will use technology to redefine human capability."

New investors include Lumina Foundation, Zanichelli Venture, and PI Impact, joining existing limited partners European Investment Fund, Jacobs Foundation, and several European family offices. Brighteye also promoted three team members: David Guérin to partner, Isabella Vahdati to principal, and Rhys Spence to head of platform and research. The team splits evenly between investment and platform roles across London and Paris offices.

Brighteye has made eight new investments so far, some unannounced, and expects up to 35 investments from Fund III in the coming years.

Loora Raises $22 Million Series B

Israel-based AI English-learning startup Loora has raised a $22 million Series B, lifting total funding to $43.25 million. Union Tech Ventures led the round, with Vgames and existing investors Emerge, Hearst Ventures, and QP Ventures participating.

The capital will fund three priorities: scaling AI research and engineering, accelerating go-to-market across the U.S., Europe, Asia, and South America, and expanding the data infrastructure behind Loora's learning outcomes. The company expects headcount to double from 30 to 60 within six months, with most new hires in AI research and engineering.

Aristotle Raises $5 Million Seed

Aristotle, a San Francisco-based voice-first AI tutoring platform, raised $5 million in seed funding. True Ventures led the round, with Wicklow Capital and angels from Anthropic, OpenAI, Sierra, Ramp, and Cognition participating.

The company is launching nationwide after a closed beta in which more than 1,000 students completed over 1,500 hours of one-on-one tutoring. It is also building a research lab focused on training AI to teach.

"Learning happens when you're held right at the edge of your understanding – struggling, but not stuck," said co-founder and CEO Shan Reddy. "Great tutors allow you to sit in that discomfort and guide where most helpful. Even best-in-class LLMs today are incapable of doing this."

Scribbi Hits Kickstarter Goal in Under Three Hours

Scribbi, a handwriting-teaching device for kids aged 3–10, reached its $20,000 Kickstarter goal in under three hours. Backers pledged more than $100,000 across three days from 195 backers, 45% of them new to the platform. The device teaches handwriting, drawing, and early math on a paper-like E-ink screen with no videos, ads, or scrolling.

"We started Scribbi because we couldn't find anything we felt good about giving our kids," said co-founder Katarina Seamons. "The result of our Kickstarter campaign shows us a lot of parents feel the same way."

ESS Acquires HeyTutor

ESS, a K-12 workforce solutions provider, has acquired HeyTutor, a technology-enabled provider of in-person tutoring, paraprofessional management, and academic intervention services for U.S. school districts. Terms were not disclosed. HeyTutor CEO Jennifer Sheffield will continue to lead the business and work with ESS management on growth and integration.

"As school districts continue to seek innovative ways to address learning loss and support student achievement, we believe the combination of ESS and HeyTutor creates a powerful platform to serve those evolving needs," said ESS CEO Buddy Helton. "HeyTutor has built an impressive reputation for delivering measurable outcomes for students while helping districts navigate recruiting, workforce management, and program administration challenges."

Together, the week's deals and funding rounds show capital consolidating around two bets: AI tools that sit close to classroom instruction, and platforms that can prove measurable learning outcomes to district buyers.