Sdui

Sdui provides a digital operating system for the education sector, specifically targeting K-12 schools and daycare centers. The company was established in Koblenz, Germany, in February 2018 by Daniel Zacharias and Jan Micha Kroll. The initial idea originated from their own experience as high school students in 2015, when they sought a way to be digitally notified about class cancellations. This led to a project for the "Jugend forscht" (Youth Research) competition, which eventually evolved into the company after they finished school. Zacharias, who serves as CEO, taught himself to code using online resources and gained early entrepreneurial experience by building an online shop. Kroll was identified as the technical talent, having developed his first app at the age of seven. Their journey included an unsuccessful appearance on the German investment show "Die Höhle der Löwen" in 2020.

The company's business model is centered on providing a GDPR-compliant, cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform to educational institutions, including individual schools, districts, and government bodies. Sdui has established itself as a significant player in the European EdTech market, serving approximately 22,000 institutions across more than 70 countries. The firm generates revenue by simplifying administrative and organizational tasks for educators, parents, and students. Strategic growth has been fueled by substantial funding rounds, including a Series A extension to €25 million in February 2023 and a significant growth investment led by Bain Capital in July 2025. Sdui has also pursued an inorganic growth strategy through acquisitions, such as purchasing the Spanish company Additio, and FoxEducation from GoStudent in July 2024, which brought the brands SchoolFox, KidsFox, and TeamFox into its portfolio.

Sdui's platform functions as a central hub designed to streamline school operations. Key features include a news feed for digital parent letters, secure chat functions as a compliant alternative to consumer messaging apps, video conferencing, and a cloud for sharing documents. The system integrates timetables from existing school management software and offers digital class registers, absence management, and survey tools. A notable feature is the automatic translation of content into numerous languages, aimed at overcoming communication barriers for families with migration backgrounds. The platform is designed for ease of use across all devices without requiring prior digital expertise and can be integrated with a school's existing digital infrastructure, such as websites and bus schedules.

Keywords: EdTech, school administration, communication platform, SaaS, GDPR-compliant, digital education, classroom management, parent-teacher communication, school operations, K-12