Layers Education, a Brazilian startup that developed a SuperApp with digital solutions and tools for educational institutions, has just taken its first step outside Brazil and announced its arrival in Mexico.
The launch of its first international project is in partnership with Lírica, a Mexican company dedicated to merging education with technology to support the digital transformation of Latin American schools.
The relationship between the companies began just over two years ago and was strengthened through an investment they had in common in 2019, when SQUARE Knowledge Ventures bet on both companies to strengthen their commitment to innovation in education.
“The two companies saw a mutual opportunity: while Lírica brings local knowledge and a solid network of contacts in the Mexican market, Layers offers a robust and scalable technological solution, capable of unifying diverse tools in a single digital environment, the education superapp. The combination of these strengths was the key to this partnership,” Danilo Yoneshige, CEO of Layers, told Contxto.
Lírica, already established in Mexico with its expertise in the digital transformation of educational institutions, identified Layers as a strategic partner in driving this transformation.
“Over time, Lírica realized that creating a solution from scratch would not make sense, due to the high cost of development and the time needed to enter the market. We realized that we could accelerate this process by joining forces in a joint project,” the CEO explained.
Created in 2018, Layers currently serves more than 1,600 institutions, 18 educational networks and 800,000 students, according to the company. Its software integrates different organizational, communication and consultation tools to facilitate exchanges between schools and families.
With this alliance, Lírica’s position will be to act as Layers’ distributor outside Brazil, providing a local service, marketing and market development team, which will help the edtech consolidate in Mexico.
“In the end, we sell and operate a third-party solution,” Lucas Doberti, co-founder of Lírica, told Contxto. “Lírica is positioned as a company capable of offering them a market they did not consider before, expanding their business expectations compared to a year ago when we started talking to them.”
The co-founder also said that it is important to clarify that both Layers and Lírica are part of the “same venture capital ecosystem” mentioned above, which has invested in both companies.
A growing market
Currently, Latin America has around 900 active edtechs, startups that develop technology solutions aimed at the education sector and that together have raised approximately $600 million since 2015, as revealed by the EdTech 2024 Report.
In fact, recently other startups in this same line such as Mattilda announced an alliance to simplify tuition payments in Mexico’s educational institutions.
Excuela, a Peru-based edtech, also announced plans to expand into the wider Latin American market, with Mexico being its next destination. The startup is raising a seed round, with which they hope to raise between $3 million and $5 million.
“There are other promising markets in Latin America, which are Argentina and Chile, which are rapidly advancing in the adoption of educational technologies. Layers already has expansion plans in these countries, with a focus on local partnerships,” said Layers’ CEO.
Both countries have shown great interest in solutions that simplify school management and improve communication between schools and students.
For his part, Doberti says that they made use of several challenges that countries in the region had in order to provide a solution on issues of school digitalization.
“Regarding the challenges we have faced as Lírica in this market, the main one has been that in Mexico there are no solutions of this type,” Doberti said.
Mexico has the lowest tertiary education achievement rate in Latin America, according to information from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). As a solution, school management software (ERP) can help organizations enroll more students, facilitate online learning and potentially improve internal communication.
Founded in 2021, Lírica began operations with 19 schools at its base and plans to expand to 1,000 educational institutions in the next three years.
Along the same lines, Mexico’s new government announced the creation of a Digital Innovation Agency that aims to digitize the processes of more than 80% of government agencies, including schools and universities of higher education.
For Doberti, his goal is focused on attracting 29,000 students to Mexico in the first year of the school cycle, to then move on to the Argentine market.
“With this we begin to structure a very significant growth to, in a second moment, evaluate new possibilities of entering other countries in the region,” said the co-founder of Lírica. “In addition, we are exploring other opportunities, albeit in embryonic form, studying an alliance with a channel in the United States to participate in its sales cycle in 2025.”
The same objectives are shared by the founder of Layers, who ended the interview by explaining that another goal is to establish a digital culture in Latin American schools: “We want to establish a digital culture in Mexican schools and demonstrate the impact that a unified platform can have on the efficiency of school management and the educational experience. The initial goal is to conquer 100 schools by the end of the year.”
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