The Venture Codex

Led · Equity · Feb 2012

Schoology is an NYC-based education technology company that provides an education cloud connecting people, content, and systems and tools to personalize education and improve student outcomes. Led by CEO Jeremy Friedman, its platform is used by more than 12 million people from 60,000 K-12 schools and universities around the world. The company raised $32M in financing and has raised $57M in total funding to date. In conjunction with the financing, Jit Sinha, General Partner at JMI Equity, will join Schoology’s board. Schoology said it will use the funds to make product engineering investments and expand distribution to reach more schools, districts, colleges and universities globally. Schoology is a New York City–based learning-management platform that offers collaborative, blended learning tools, dedicated mobile apps, advanced analytics, and an open API for third-party integrations. The company provides both a free stand-alone product and a fee-based enterprise-class solution deployed in schools or across districts. Schoology supports five million users across 50,000 K-12 schools and universities in nearly every country, and has secured major deployments such as Uruguay’s national initiative for 620,000 students and a collaboration with CSU Global Campus. It has received industry recognition, including top education technology product at the 2014 SIIA CODiE Awards and multiple CODiE awards this year. The new growth capital is intended to accelerate expansion into K-12, higher education and international markets, scale operations, and build new product features. Intel Capital’s participation and the board appointment signal strategic validation as Schoology continues to commercialize and grow its platform. Schoology is a New York City–based developer of a cloud-based collaborative learning platform for K–20 classrooms. Led by founder and CEO Jeremy Friedman, it provides teachers and administrators with a full suite of learning management tools to manage lessons and homework, administer and grade tests and quizzes, discover and embed educational content, and collaborate on course materials. The platform includes analytics for individual student and overall classroom performance and tools to communicate and engage with students in a secure online environment. Schoology has been used by more than 18,000 schools and districts in the U.S. and abroad. The company has raised $9.3M in funding to date and is currently hiring. Schoology develops a cloud-based collaborative learning platform for K-12 classrooms that is available as a free standalone product and as a fee-based configurable enterprise solution. The platform combines online learning, classroom management, social networking, and tools to improve communication, collaboration, parental engagement, and access to curriculum and supplemental content. Schoology's system requires no installation, training, or maintenance and integrates with existing school/district technologies to create a single, scalable interface for teaching, assessment, administration, and analysis of student progress. It also enables school-to-school networking and a centralized resource library for sharing best practices and digital content. The company says it continues to sign contracts with prestigious K-12 districts domestically and abroad and plans regional expansion through a partnership with Cempaka Schools to promote usage in Malaysia and Singapore. With Cempaka's $1 million investment, Schoology has raised $3.3 million in venture capital to date. Schoology makes a cloud-based learning management system and configurable social network for academic institutions. Its platform bundles an online gradebook, attendance, tests/quizzes, discussion boards, blogs, homework dropboxes, and collaborative course and group pages. The social-network features enable cross-school networking so multiple organizations can join shared classes, groups, and discussions, and the suite can integrate with existing school reporting and information systems. Schoology offers the core platform free to individuals, schools, and districts and monetizes through premium add-ons such as custom branding and support packages. The company is preparing a full API release in July 2010 to enable custom applications and integrations. It plans to use recent funding to expand its workforce and grow the service.