• Echo360

  Led · Debt Financing · May 2024

  Echo360 is a SaaS-based classroom and workplace engagement platform offering digital interactive learning, content creation, training, and engagement solutions for higher education and corporate customers. The company is owned by private investment firm Centre Lane Partners. o15 Capital Partners, through its Emerging Americas Credit Opportunities I fund, acted as co-agent to provide a $43 million facility to refinance Echo360's existing debt and finance a transformative acquisition. The acquisition is described as creating a large SaaS platform of scale with a comprehensive product suite and a well diversified, global customer base. That scale is expected to allow the company to further capitalize on market growth tailwinds in the education technology space. o15 said the investment aligns with its impact strategy and expressed excitement to partner with Centre Lane Partners and Echo360 for the next phase of growth. Echo360 offers an active learning technology platform for higher education, delivering a SaaS learning and analytics solution called the Echo360 active learning platform. The platform increases in-class participation through digital polling, records and publishes course instruction for out-of-class access, and provides usage analytics to help instructors respond to student needs. Students can revisit lectures, collaborate with peers, and participate using smartphones, tablets, and laptops. The company is led by CEO Fred Singer and recently launched the Echo360 active learning platform. Echo360 intends to use new funding to accelerate deployment of that platform. Echo360 offers a lecture-capture platform—described as a TiVo for the classroom—that records classroom video and audio and converts them into digital modules accessible on desktops, tablets, and mobile devices. The product set has expanded to let educators create learning modules, screencasts, and tutorials, edit and publish rich media (including offline workflows), and access video-viewing stats and analytics in a single hub. The company says it already has 1 million students using its solutions across more than 6,000 classrooms and 500 institutions and claims a 54% share of its market. Echo360 reports roughly $15 million in annual revenue and is currently serving about 10% of U.S. colleges and universities. It licenses its software to schools on annual contracts that range from $20K to $200K (about $15 per student per year on average). Management has set a goal to reach 50% of U.S. college students within five years and also sees expansion opportunities abroad.

No current team members are available.