AltSchool builds a personalized education platform (AltSchool Open) and operates a network of microschools as testbeds for that technology. The company currently runs eight schools in the San Francisco and New York City regions, each serving roughly 35–120 students, and hand‑picked four small private schools to pilot its platform. AltSchool has shifted from aggressively expanding its microschool footprint to a slower R&D posture focused on co‑developing the platform with outside educators and adapting to diverse school contexts. Leadership aims to add about 10 new schools (including charters) for 2018–19 and land its first traditional public school by 2019, with the goal of selling a refined product nationwide by 2020. Cost remains a key challenge—staff estimate a rough target price of about $400 per student per year—and the team is still working on a pricing model that fits school budgets. The company employs more than 150 people across educators, engineers, and operations and plans to grow the team as it scales. AltSchool operates a network of small, technology-backed K-8 micro-schools that combine personalized learning plans with a central platform handling admissions, assessment, parent communication and operations. Its platform enables teachers to create custom lesson plans and iteratively improve curricula and tools based on real-time feedback. The organization has rapidly expanded since founding, growing staff from 30 to 115 and scaling student enrollment from 20 in 2013 to as many as 500 students this year across multiple schools. AltSchool currently operates schools in the Bay Area with additional locations in San Francisco, Palo Alto and Brooklyn due to open in fall 2015. The company plans to offer its platform and services to non-AltSchool schools nationwide through trials and modular product offerings. The new capital will support opening more schools, hiring, developing new platform functionality and rolling out its model to other schools. AltSchool operates micro-schools that couple personalized, child-centered curricula with a technology platform that documents learning and enables individualized "playlists" for students. Teachers create weekly personalized learning goals; each student uses an iPad mini and classrooms are outfitted with video and audio hardware that upload to a central CMS accessible to parents and teachers. The company emphasizes small class sizes (generally eight students to one teacher) and currently runs a Dogpatch San Francisco school with about 20 students ages five to ten. Long-term product goals include building an infrastructure layer or platform that other educational programs can use, akin to a "Linux/Android" for education. More than half of the new funding will be used to hire product, engineering, and design talent to build that technology infrastructure. AltSchool has begun the process of becoming a certified B Corporation and offers need-blind admissions plus philanthropic tuition assistance; current tuition is listed at $19,100 per year. AltSchool operates small, technology-enabled micro-schools that deliver highly personalized, child-centered curricula. Classrooms use iPad minis, teacher-created weekly "playlists" (managed via Trello), video capture and a CMS so parents and teachers can review student progress. The inaugural Dogpatch classroom houses ~20 students ages 5–10 with roughly an 8:1 student-to-teacher ratio; students also use LearnZillion and an internal messaging/dashboard for collaboration. Tuition is $19,100 per year with generous financial aid available. AltSchool is building an R&D team of designers, engineers and technologists to develop proprietary in-class software and hardware. The company plans to scale into a network of 60–100 student micro-schools, with new sites planned in Potrero Hill, a SOMA middle school next year, and a possible Palo Alto location.

Total raised

$176M

Funding rounds

5

Latest round

Series C

Latest activity

May 2017