There are two, seemingly uncorrelated, trends occurring across the United States:
The death of the suburban mall: called “zombie malls” by the New York Times, these malls were the retail workhorses of the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s that have been losing share to online commerce for years.
The inflexibility of public K12 infrastructure: public school systems use long-term financing to build new infrastructure, planning for student growth/decline over decades. When ~5% of students leave the system for homeschooling in 18 months, this planning is warped. Even if these students eventually return, school infrastructure is rarely built with year-to-year flexibility in mind
Where might a capacity-constrained school system look for easily-partitioned additional space? How about malls?
It can be difficult to keep up with Ed Tech, as it’s rarely in mainstream news. There is a continual reshuffling of the Ed Tech players through mergers and takeovers and VC fundings, and new startups, etc. as this still very immature market takes shape. Here’s a link to a popular Ed Tech news site, created by Matthew Tower.
Kaipod raises $1.5M
Kaipod provides built-out physical spaces for K12 students enrolled in virtual schools. Their founder, Amar Kumar, is familiar with the space, having previously led Product for Pearson’s online division, including their virtual high school Connections Academy.