Participated · Seed · Nov 2018

Founded in 2015, Miami-based Knack offers a student success platform that enables colleges and universities to identify, credential, and pay high-achieving students who serve as peer tutors for their classmates. The software handles tutor recruitment, matching, scheduling, and payment, giving institutions a turnkey way to expand academic support services while creating paid, skill-building jobs for students. Knack is already deployed on hundreds of U.S. campuses, with partners that include Fordham University, Northeastern University, the University of Florida, and Georgia Tech. Through these partnerships, student tutors on the platform have collectively earned millions of dollars and schools report improvements in retention and graduation rates. The company plans to use fresh capital to deepen campus penetration and further scale its peer-learning programs. Veteran education executive Megan Dusenbery, formerly Chief Partnerships Officer at ACUE, has been appointed CEO to steer this next growth phase, while founder Samyr Qureshi moves to Executive Chairman. Knack is backed by a roster of education-focused investors such as New Markets Venture Partners, Precursor Ventures, ETS.org, Chegg, ASU Enterprise Partners, Village Capital, and Bisk Ventures.