EdTech in Latin America: The Opportunity in Workforce Development

I collaborated with Felipe Arango and Vedant Agrawal for this article.

Latin America is ripe for investment and awash with business opportunities. Yesterday (December 9, 2021), challenger fintech NuBank raised $2.8 billion in a top-of-range IPO in the US. Valued at almost $50 billion, NuBank is now Latin America’s largest financial institution.

Noticing the huge opportunities that Latin America has to offer, investors have poured billions and mega funding rounds into startups in the region this year alone. Fintech, logistics, e-commerce lead the way as the most important sectors attracting funding and talent. EdTech will surely follow suit, especially given the unmet needs of both learners and employers.

In this article, we first outline the opportunity in EdTech in workforce development for both learners and providers in Latin America. We then present a round-up of the most important startups in the space. Finally, we offer a few ideas of whitespaces that have yet to be exploited.

Part One: Understanding the Customer Need

The Basics

• LATAM population — 660 Million, 25% (163M) between ages 15–29 (OECD).
• Unemployment rate in Latam and the Caribbean reached 10% in 2020, up from 7.9% a year earlier (World Bank).
• The informal economy represents 34% of average GDP in Latam. Around half of young people in Latam are employed in the informal sector, and six out of ten jobs available for young people are in the informal economy (Borgen Project).
• Spanish Latin America, in addition to Spain, can be seen as one market, although there are large differences in income levels, varying political climates, and currency fluctuations remain risky.
• The education market in Brazil is more mature than in the rest of Latin America. This is largely due to a large population and a higher purchasing power.

Higher Education Statistics

• As of 2018, the gross enrolment rate in higher education in Latin America is just over 50% (UNESCO). Over the past two decades, enrollment in higher education significantly expanded in Latin America; the private sector has contributed to this expansion (World Bank).
• University graduation rate is low at 46% (compared to 67% in the US). Indeed, less than half finish their degree by the time they are 25–29 years old. Access and quality differs widely by country, race and socio-economic status. For example, only 5% of Brazil’s lowest income quintile has access to higher education, compared to 46% of its highest income quintile (World Bank)
• It takes Latin Americans significantly longer to complete their degrees than counterparts in the rest of the world, with time to degree programs up to six years for a bachelor’s degree.
• Returns on higher education are not necessarily better than returns on secondary education; these returns vary widely by field of study.
• Current field of study offerings are lacking in diversity: Latam is not producing enough scientists, engineers, and too many people with degrees in business, law and social sciences.
• Latin Americans spend around 50% of GDP per capita on higher education, well above that of developed countries. Average total expenditure on higher education (public and private) is around $5,000 across the region. (World Bank)

Based on the figures above, we can extrapolate a market size for higher education EdTech in Latam: $8.5 billion (assuming 5,000 spend per student, 17M students and 10% spend on EdTech).

The formal economy: skills shortage

• Youth and adults in Latin America perform poorly in literacy, numeracy and technology use compared with their counterparts in OECD countries (OECD).
• Latin America has the biggest skill gap in the world: Over 4 in 10 firms in Latin America say they have difficulty finding workers with the right skills (World Economic Forum).
• Firms in Latin America take up to 6.5 weeks to fill a vacancy for skilled labor.
• Many factors contribute to skill mismatch in Latin America: one important one is lack of information on returns of education / training by field of study (employment rate, earnings, retention rates).
• High-skilled gig-economy jobs on web platforms have gone unfilled in Latam, suggesting the need for specific skills (ILO & CEPAL).
• Investment in tech, entrepreneurship and innovation is increasing, which will require more tech workers.
• Although the tech venture world in Latin America is booming, talent remains the main constraint to unlock the sector’s potential.
• There is high unfilled demand for technology and STEM-related trained candidates. According to LinkedIn, 9 out of the 10 top job searches in Brazil are for tech-related positions.

The corporate training market is expected to grow by $3.18 Billion during 2020–2024, thanks to the expansion of L&D spend among SMEs and government programs mandating up-skilling (Business Wire).

Part Two: Understanding the Student Journey

To help illustrate student pain points and whitespaces in the region, we outlined the journey of a higher education learner, as well solutions and potential product offerings in the table below:

The Learner’s Journey in Latin America

Part Three: Understanding the Provider’s Journey

To help illustrate the providers’ pain points and whitespaces in Latam, we outlined the journey of a higher education institutions, as well potential solutions and potential product offering in the table below:

The Higher Education Provider’s Journey in Latin America

Part Four: Market Map and Recent Raises

A number of successful EdTech companies were born in Latam over the past few years, and have catered to the higher education and workforce consumer. It is important to note that Brazil, being the largest country and one with the highest purchasing power, is on a league of its own. Below is a market map of some of the most prominent Latin American companies:

Market Map: Latam EdTech Startups in Workforce Development

Excitingly, Latin American EdTech startups have raised important amounts of funding since the pandemic started in 2020. We increasingly see a diversity of geography: beyond Brazil, countries such as Colombia, Argentina and Peru are well represented by EdTech raises. Moreover, we also see global VC powerhouses now investing heavily in Latin American EdTech (e.g., Softbank, General Atlantic, 500 Founders). However, we do see a concentration of reskilling platforms among the most prominent venture raises, reflecting not only the pressing needs of workforce development, but also the large unmet financing opportunity in other spaces (e.g., career guidance, FinTech for EdTech, apprenticeships).

The most notable raises are outlined below:

• Descomplica, a Brazilian test prep company, raised the largest round of a Latin American EdTech startup, a series D at $84.5M in February 2021. The round was led by Softbank,
• Crehana, a B2B full-services reskilling platform out of Peru, raised $70M in its Series B round in summer 2021, led by General Atlantic.
• Platzi, a B2C reskilling platform out of Colombia and Guatemala, raised $62M for its Series B in December 2021, from Prosus, 500 Startups, Y Combinator & more. More than 2.5 million learners have used the platform to date.
• Coderhouse, an online bootcamp out of Argentina, raised a $13.5M round A led by Monashees, with participation from NuBank’s David Velez, the founders of Rappi and Bitso (among other founders), and Reach Capital.
• Ubits, a B2B reskilling platform out of Colombia and Mexico, raised a $5M Series A round led by Owl Ventures.

Part Five: Whitespaces — where are the opportunities of the future?

The market is far from being fully penetrated, let alone saturated. Moreover, the future holds the promise of faster & cheaper internet, and of higher purchasing power. Based on the market needs, journeys presented above and raises, we identified the following whitespaces that should be filled by entrepreneurs:

• University recruiting: information platforms that connect diverse students to universities based on major, geographic proximity, cost of attendance, etc.
• FinTech for EdTech: higher education remains unattainable for many learners due to financial constraints. There are very few companies that cater to this pressing need today (e.g., Pravaler in Brazil).
• Career guidance: Platforms that offer information about the returns of specific fields of study, the demand of the job market, and how it is linked to university studies.
• Staffing companies: Companies that help employers source and recruit the relevant talent (e.g., Forage in the US)
• Apprenticeship models: Companies that help embed learners in jobs
• Products to address the informal economy: Products that cater to the informal economy, such as Apna (India) and Fuzu (Kenya) could be hugely impactful in Latin America.