| Hi, Agen. Edtech’s meteoric rise during the pandemic is not playing as well in today’s funding environment. We look at overall funding to the sector, which is facing disappointments in the edtech unicorn crowd, some reversal of the pandemic-driven boost in online learning, and a weak exit environment. And, it’s not just you. Artificial intelligence is raising a ton of money and shook up the rankings of Bessemer Venture Partners’ annual Benchmarks Report. Pandemic-fueled funding in edtech is leaving the sector gasping for breath as valuations decline and startups aren’t getting any big investments. There is a bright spot, however, for those that include AI-enabled edtech tools and platforms. While not the $100 million-plus raises of the past, these startups are raising some cash. Related Crunchbase Pro list: Edtech And Education Startup Funding Bessemer Venture Partners released its annual ranking of private cloud companies, and to no surprise artificial intelligence leads the way. Along with OpenAI, four additional native AI companies ranked this year, and a cloud security company raised its way closer to the top. SoftBank’s Vision Fund unit — known for its investment in startups including Uber, WeWork and DoorDash — posted its first gain in six quarters as the tech investing giant started to look for deals again. Venture firms with solid, successful platform teams would do well to keep them intact, no matter the direction the market is moving, argues guest author Dale Chang, operating partner at Scale Venture Partners and board member of VC Platform Global Community. A total of 14 tech startups joined our Layoffs Tracker last week. Four of them laid off all their workers and shut down. At the top of the shut-down list was a hot indoor farming startup that raised nearly $700 million from venture investors before going public via SPAC. After a kind of sleepy July, August came roaring back with a whole bunch of nine-figure funding rounds to U.S. startups last week. That includes big checks to a networking startup headed by the former longtime CEO of Cisco, a company working on turning greenhouse gasses into a useful material it calls “AirCarbon,” and a startup hoping to make shopping for car insurance suck a little less. | 
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