• AdmitSee

  Participated · Seed · Oct 2015

  AdmitSee operates a peer-to-peer marketplace that pays college students to submit successful application files and lets high school students pay for mentor access and application-file viewing. The platform has amassed 50,000 application files and about 1,000 student mentors; the company is a two-year-old, 10-person startup founded in 2013 in San Francisco. Pricing on the site includes $10 paid to submitters plus $2 per view, $9 per week per mentor for Q&A, a $20 one-time essay-review fee, and $75 per month to view files from five chosen schools. AdmitSee says it is using trends from its data to advise applicants on school fit and early-admission strategy. Future plans include products to help undergraduates apply to graduate programs and a recruiting/job product to connect students with employers, with a potential lead-gen business aimed at law and business schools. The company has begun hiring (its first designer was recently hired) and plans to use new funding to grow brand awareness and hire salespeople.

• Showbie

  Participated · Seed · Apr 2015

  Showbie provides a classroom platform that enables faster, easier grading and assessment while delivering operational efficiencies for schools and districts. The product offers free and paid subscription tiers; roughly 65% of customers are paid. Pre-pandemic the platform served about 18,000 teachers per month and today serves 55,000 teachers per month across more than 135 countries, with core K-12 markets in the U.S., U.K., and Nordic countries and emerging use in the Middle East and Australia. Usage surged during COVID-19 (a reported 251% year-over-year increase in platform usage) and average teachers now use the platform three to four times as often as before the pandemic. Showbie plans to expand sales and marketing and accelerate feature development, including launching a new Android app on Google Play and improving administrator-focused features and reporting, and to grow teams in sales, marketing, and engineering in Edmonton and Toronto. The company was capital-efficient and profitable before its Series A and has scaled staff from 25 to 62 employees since the initial Series A investment. Showbie provides a classroom workflow platform that bundles a variety of educational tools in one app to increase teacher productivity, help identify struggling students, and let administrators track learning objectives. The product lets teachers distribute documents, images, instructions, and feedback, and access preloaded assignments and lesson plans. During the COVID-19 pandemic Showbie added a video chat function and donated over $1 million USD worth of software licenses to schools and districts to support remote learning. The company says it has over 3 million educators registered for its products globally. Showbie plans to use its newest capital to improve digital communication on the platform and to build products that help teachers, schools, and districts better understand student engagement. Founded in 2012 by Colin Bramm and Roy Pombeiro, the company is based in Edmonton. Showbie provides a simple workflow for teachers and students to assign, submit, and annotate homework digitally, including photo and PDF annotation via its iOS app. The company emphasizes simplicity and was built in close collaboration with teachers to reduce grading time and enable richer feedback. Showbie offers a freemium model that lets teachers start with a free edition and upgrades to a Pro version and paid subscriptions for additional apps and products in the long run. The service is available in 10 languages and is used at 17,000 institutions with more than 1.2 million students and teachers. Showbie reports adding about 900 schools and 140,000 students per month. The company plans to add a markbook and improved annotation features, including voice notes, before the next school year. Financially, Showbie has raised a total of $2.3 million in seed funding.

• SchoolMint

  Participated · Seed · Sep 2014

  SchoolMint offers a software-as-a-service platform for digital student enrollment, letting parents register children via desktop or mobile. The product targets kindergartens, pre-schools, elementary schools and high schools around the country. SchoolMint raised $5.6 million in its latest funding round. The round was led by Runa Capital and drew participation from education- and government-focused investors. Other participants named in the article include Reach NewSchools Capital, Fresco Capital, the Govtech Fund, Kapor Capital and institutional investor Crosslink Capital. Maiden Lane Ventures and CSC Upshot also participated; the article notes those are the American and Chinese venture funds affiliated with AngelList. SchoolMint is an online and mobile enrollment platform for K-12 schools that helps manage applications, school choice, registration forms, waitlists, run lotteries, communicate deadlines and send notifications. Launched in 2013 by Jinal Jhaveri and Forum Desai and based in San Francisco, the solution is used by hundreds of public and charter schools across more than 21 cities and 10 states. The platform enrolls hundreds of thousands of K-12 students. In September 2014 SchoolMint raised $2.2M in seed financing led by New School Ventures Fund, Runa Capital and Crosslink Capital, with participation from Kapor Capital, Imagine K12, Romulus Capital, Fresco Capital, EdMentor VC and angels including Jared Kopf. The company intends to use the funds to expand the team, enhance product offerings and increase its presence across the country.

• EdSurge

  Participated · Series A · Feb 2014

  EdSurge is a Burlingame, California–based source of information and resources on edtech, founded in 2011 by CEO Betsy Corcoran. The company produces editorial content, runs conferences, operates a jobs board and offers a product called Edtech Concierge. Its mission is to connect educators with the most appropriate technology for their students and schools. As of this round the company had raised $5.6M in total funding. The new funds will be used to grow operations and to expand coverage beyond K–12 into higher education. Management and staff will continue to own the majority following the round. Edsurge is a Burlingame, CA-based independent provider of news, analysis and events focused on the education-technology community. The platform offers news, events and products for educators, helps developers understand educator and learner needs, and provides market insights for investors. Founded in 2011 and led by CEO Elizabeth Corcoran, the company has raised $2.86M to date. It recently added $960K to its Series A, bringing the round total to $2.46M. The company intends to use the funds to launch new initiatives. Backers include angel and venture investors such as Steve Blank, Catamount Ventures, Dale Dougherty and the Women's Venture Capital Fund. EdSurge provides news, analysis and events for the education-technology community, serving educators, entrepreneurs and investors. Its site aims to help educators discover products, developers understand what educators and learners need, and investors make sense of the edtech market. The company intends to use the Series A funds to organize live events across the US (EdSurge Summits), produce customized research reports for schools, edtech companies and investors, develop a nationwide hiring site, and continue growth in its mass-audience newsletters. EdSurge completed a $1.5M Series A financing led by GSV Capital. Founded in 2011 by Nick Punt, Elizabeth (Betsy) Corcoran and Agustin Vilaseca, the company is majority-owned by its employees and executives. It is based in Burlingame, California. Founded in February 2011 by veteran journalists, EdSurge operates a website and a popular weekly eNewsletter that aim to serve as a central hub for education-technology news and information. The site produces reporting, blogging and events to help educators, entrepreneurs and investors discover and evaluate edtech products. EdSurge emphasizes independent reviews and practical coverage to help schools sift through new products and adoption claims. The startup grew to a team of seven and counts tens of thousands of readers, reflecting early traction in the edtech community. As it moves forward, EdSurge plans to expand the breadth of its coverage and further develop independent reviews of edtech startups and products. Its editorial and product focus is intended to bridge a previously fragmented market and spur better product development by providing rigorous, usable information.

No current team members are available.