paddy secures €1M Pre-Seed to lighten teachers’ workloads, gaining 12k users in just six months

German edtech startup paddy has raised €1 million in Pre-Seed funding, with High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) as lead investor. 

paddy has developed a unique AI platform that saves teachers time throughout their day, enabling them to provide personalised support to students once again.

I spoke to CEO Matty Frommann to learn more. The startup was founded in Eastern Westphalia by three "teachers' kids", Matty Frommann, Lukas  Portmann, and Tobias Schröder, who had only recently finished school themselves. 

"I saw firsthand as a student how overwhelmed many teachers were – no time for individual support, even though the intention was there. That's what sparked the idea for Paddy," says  Matty Frommann, co-founder and CEO of paddy. 

Further, his parents — both teachers — shared their frustrations with overcrowded classes, endless grading, and the feeling of never being able to meet every student's needs.

Teachers constantly juggle between admin work,  curriculum pressure, and classroom management, often without the ability to respond to individual students.  During the pandemic, the future paddy founders organised local teacher trainings and saw firsthand how schools struggled with digital and structural challenges. 

In the DACH region alone, around two million teachers work at over 40,000 schools  (German Federal Employment Agency). Yet pragmatic solutions to relieve their daily workload remain scarce. According to a study conducted by Bitkom (the German Digital  Association), over 70 per cent of educators cite overload and teacher shortages as core challenges. More than half say growing class sizes leave little time to meet individual student needs.

In 2024, the trio founded  DigitalErleben GmbH and launched the paddy AI platform in January 2025 – a solution that truly simplifies daily teaching routines. The platform assists with lesson planning, creates tailored teaching materials in various formats, offers digital tools for lesson delivery,  and analyses class performance. 

paddy grew out of 500 training courses and 10,000 teacher discussions – more teachers than most education ministers have ever seen.

According to Frommann, this made it easy to attract teachers to the platform, "because we already had 500 customers through that work and we had built a relationship with the person within the school who makes decisions such as tech purchasing."

Teachers asked the same question every time: 'Why isn't there a tool that really helps us?' So we built it: paddy."

Users have grown to a staggering 12,000 teachers.  paddy eases the workload in planning, conducting, and reviewing lessons and supports educators in giving personalised attention to their students, with no extra workload or training required. 

According to Frommann, the platform's most-used function is the lesson preparation part.

"Right now, teachers use Paddy primarily for content creation, planning entire lessons of 45 or 90 minutes."

The platform identifies the topic, target group, and learning objectives. It suggests matching tasks, methods, and materials, generates differentiated content, and analyses student progress to support next steps. Teachers quickly gain insight into where their class stands and who may need extra support. 

Instead of jumping between tools, binders, and to-do lists, teachers have time again for what really matters in the classroom: personalised support, meaningful feedback, and genuine connection with their students. 

Investors in paddy include the Federal Ministry for Economic  Affairs and Energy, KfW Capital, as well as 45 companies and family offices. 

According to Felix Assion,  Investment Manager at HTGF, paddy shows how we can reduce stress for teachers while helping students develop AI  skills at an early stage:

"Beyond the impressive product, it's the team that won me over:  Despite their young age, the founders already demonstrate remarkable entrepreneurial  intuition – and I'm excited to see where the journey takes them!"  

With over 12,000 active users  (teachers) just six months post-launch, paddy is well on its way to transforming education in the DACH region through AI.   According to Frommann:

"Right now, we've expanded to 100 school customers — a milestone we reached just last week. In the coming months, we want to enhance the platform's AI capabilities. We already have a lot of AI tools, but we're aiming to make them more intelligent. 

At the moment, we're strong in lesson preparation and analysis, but less so in the in-class teaching part — and that will be our next product focus.  We're also hiring extensively to reach 500 customers next year."

The company expects to reach a mid-six-figure revenue by the end of the year.

Lead image: Paddy. Photo: uncredited.