OIF Ventures and Victorian government-backed early-stage venture firm Skalata have led a $2.3 million capital raising round for education technology company LoveHeart AI.
LoveHeart AI has developed a software program that helps early childhood educators gather observations and prepare reports as well as providing them with prompts on developing activities for specific children.
LoveHeart AI was founded by chief executive Himal Randeniya and Anand Rego in 2022.
Randeniya previously founded school-age education coaching business Project Academy. He went on to buy and operate several early childhood education centres.
He recognised that early childhood educators were typically overloaded with administrative tasks which reduced the time they could spend interacting with children.
This led Randeniya to start developing LoveHeart, an AI-based teacher’s aide that coaches educators to improve their practice and helps them generate high quality documentation in minutes rather than hours.
A recent report from the Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority found that 30% of early childhood educators were leaving the sector each year as a result of workload intensity. Many were spending more than 20% of their time on administration.
LoveHeart is designed to reduce this pressure.
Randeniya said: “Research has shown us how imperative early childhood education is in shifting the trajectory of young people’s lives, yet we’re still faced with significant sector-wide challenges.
“Education quality is diminishing due to high staff turnover, with 30% of educators leaving the sector annually, and red tape only exacerbates the issue.”
According to Randeniya, LoveHeart reduces the administrative burden on educators whilst simultaneously improving their capability and improving the quality of education provided.
OIF investment team member Andrew Yeo, who led the firm’s investment in LoveHeart AI, said the technology had the potential to dramatically improve early learning for both children and educators.
“LoveHart has shown impressive growth in the 12 months since launch, signing up over 40,000 educators and centres at scale with both educators and centres paying for the product,” he said. “The advocacy we’re seeing from educators demonstrates how AI can be used for good to uplift learning at the earliest and highest leverage stage of life.”