• EducationSuperHighway

  Led · Equity · Dec 2013

  EducationSuperHighway operates SchoolSpeedTest, a tool that lets schools measure broadband speed and provides guidance to help them upgrade connections. The nonprofit is led by CEO Evan Marwell and aims to close the education digital divide highlighted by claims that roughly 72% of U.S. schools have out-of-date, slow, or no Internet connections. In the past 12 months, 600,000 students, teachers and administrators have taken the SchoolSpeedTest. The organization currently covers 26 U.S. states with its speed-test network and plans to expand coverage to all states and pursue outreach abroad. It also plans to improve its portal with technical expertise and pricing information, expand its team to assist schools with upgrades, and increase lobbying efforts to support FCC policy recommendations. EducationSuperHighway positions itself as a bridge to help schools tap into available federal funding for broadband improvements.

• Panorama Education

  Participated · Seed · Oct 2013

  Panorama Education builds a K-12 education software platform that surveys students, parents and teachers to collect actionable data for schools. The platform integrates with district data systems to pull together a comprehensive view of student information and gives teachers tools to plan interventions. Panorama says it serves 13 million students in 23,000 schools, including more than 1,500 school districts and over 50 of the largest 100 districts and state agencies, with clients such as the New York City Department of Education and Clark County School District. Since March 2020 the company added 700 school districts, nearly doubling from 800 eighteen months earlier, and roughly 25 million people took a Panorama survey in the past year. Panorama reports about 250 employees and asserts district outcomes like improved graduation rates and fewer behavior referrals. The company plans to use new capital for continued product development, deeper district partnerships and hiring. Panorama Education is an edtech company founded in 2012 and based in Boston, MA, that provides a platform for school districts to measure and improve students' social-emotional learning, family engagement, and college readiness. Its core products include research-backed surveys to assess domains such as growth mindset, social awareness, and self-management, and Playbook, which offers strategies and resources guided by SEL data. A newer tool, Panorama Student Success, combines academic, attendance, behavior, and SEL data to give a holistic picture of each student and to identify students at risk of not graduating or needing coordinated services. Teachers, counselors, and principals use Playbook and the platform's resources, which include materials from partners like Second Step, Transforming Education, and Teaching Tolerance. The platform is used by 400 school systems, including the New York City Department of Education, Dallas Independent School District, San Francisco Unified School District, and Long Beach Unified School District. Panorama plans to use the funding to expand adoption of its tools to more districts. Panorama Education builds survey tools that collect feedback from students, parents, and teachers and combines those responses with existing school data to surface actionable insights. The platform lets districts choose focus areas (safety, trust in teachers, student potential, etc.) and adapts survey delivery to district needs (paper or email). Panorama works with thousands of schools across 220 districts in 40 states, reaching more than three million students, including 14 of the top 100 largest U.S. districts such as San Francisco Unified, Seattle Public Schools, and Dallas Independent. The company was founded in 2013 by Aaron Feuer and Xan Tanner. As districts adopt Panorama not only to diagnose issues but to report on interventions, the company aims to move from measurement toward prescribing solutions for educational problems. The business model emphasizes district sales and tailoring to varied communication infrastructures across wealthier and less-resourced districts. Panorama Education designs, administers and analyzes surveys (online, paper and phone) to give teachers and administrators insight into learning, school climate and social inclusion. The company combines anonymized survey data with other information to produce comparative analyses and recommendations. It currently serves roughly 4,000 schools covering over 1 million students, with clients including the Connecticut and Colorado state departments of education and the Los Angeles Unified School District (550,000 students). Panorama conducts large volumes of paper surveys (about half a million) and uses internal teams and systems to parse results and advise schools. The founders, Aaron Feuer and Xan Tanner, started the company in 2010 while undergraduates at Yale and the startup was incubated in Y Combinator earlier this year. Financial details are limited: pricing varies by engagement, Feuer declined to disclose current revenue, though in May the company had a run rate of about $500,000 when it had ~1,100 clients. Future plans include deeper U.S. market expansion, first international efforts via a Teach for All partnership across 17 countries starting with the U.K., and evolving beyond surveys toward broader problem-solving services for schools.

No current team members are available.