Can any­one make mon­ey sell­ing ed tech?  One com­pa­ny thinks so and could be val­ued at over $1 bil­lion dollars.

It all starts with the ABC’s with the mega kids app called ABCmouse.

The holy grail for jobs at app com­pa­nies or oth­er tech jobs or media jobs isn’t to land a job at Google, or Microsoft, or Apple. It’s land­ing a job at the next Google or Microsoft or Apple before they get there. To find that com­pa­ny, you want to look at any nexus between a cur­rent or com­ing soci­etal change and tech­no­log­i­cal advances. One of the mar­kets where this is cur­rent­ly hap­pen­ing is edu­ca­tion­al technology.

The Ed Tech Opportunity

Ed tech is fast approach­ing a $10 bil­lion mar­ket, and edu­ca­tion­al reform is a huge issue in our cul­ture, so oppor­tu­ni­ties should be abun­dant. But while there have been some great prod­ucts and ideas devel­oped, the next mega-com­pa­ny has­n’t yet emerged. At least not in the pub­lic eye.

Enter ABC­mouse, a learn­ing app for chil­dren between ages 2 and 7 (cur­rent­ly, 2–8 soon) made by edu­ca­tion­al start up The Age of Learn­ing, based in Glen­dale, CA. As far as edu­ca­tion­al start ups or ed tech go, you could say they’re start­ing to get grey. The com­pa­ny was found­ed in 2007 by Doug Dohring and spent four years devel­op­ing before they launched their first prod­uct for par­ents in 2010 and for teach­ers in 2011, unlike the pre­vail­ing trend in tech of mov­ing as fast and far as pos­si­ble quickly.

Anoth­er trend that ed tech com­pa­ny Age of Learn­ing bucks is expan­sion. Sev­er­al years ago they had dis­parate prod­ucts here and there, but they decid­ed to con­sol­i­date them, and their future plans, into a sin­gle flag­ship prod­uct which became ABC­mouse. The com­pa­ny has said that ABC­mouse will be their sin­gu­lar focus going for­ward. They’ve found what they do real­ly well and focused there. The app has con­sis­tent­ly been list­ed near the top in the most down­loaded and high­est gross­ing cat­e­gories and is cur­rent­ly avail­able in only the US and (very recent­ly) Chi­na. That will like­ly change soon, however.

Age of Learning Secures New Funding

After a pre­vi­ous fundrais­ing round in 2011 and 2012 of $30 mil­lion, Age of Learn­ing just secured $150 mil­lion in new fund­ing at a $1 bil­lion val­u­a­tion from Icon­ic Capi­tol. That puts it square­ly at the top of its space, and there is plen­ty of room for growth both in the range of the prod­uct and in its geo­graph­i­cal reach. Not sur­pris­ing­ly, there are also plen­ty of job open­ings at the com­pa­ny right now, from app devel­op­ers to book edi­tors to cus­tomer ser­vice reps.

ABC­mouse is a sub­scrip­tion ser­vice that pro­vides unlim­it­ed access to more than 7,000 activ­i­ties for $7.95 per month and allows three child pro­files. Schools, Head Start cen­ters, com­mu­ni­ty cen­ters, and libraries have free access. The com­pa­ny has over $100 mil­lion in annu­al rev­enues and is prof­itable, and the room for expan­sion is pret­ty mas­sive. First, expand­ing to k‑12, then expand­ing in the rest of the world.

For any­one look­ing for jobs in media, tech, edu­ca­tion, or a mix of these, this seems to be a ripe oppor­tu­ni­ty that does­n’t always come along. If you are inter­est­ed in a job with Age of Learn­ing, you must apply from a desk­top or lap­top online here.