The Venture Codex

Participated · Series A · Mar 2021

Founded in 2016, 101edu offers a mobile-first courseware platform that delivers active learning, homework, and assessment tools to help students visualize and interact with STEM concepts. Its first product, Chem101, is adopted by over 1,500 chemistry faculty at 400+ colleges and universities across North America. Chem101 is used alongside publisher textbooks and is directly integrated with free OER textbooks such as OpenStax Chemistry to reduce student course material costs. The platform enables instructors to engage students during and after class with real-time digital learning activities, online homework, timed quizzes, and extra practice. The company plans to use new funding to accelerate growth and expand into other STEM disciplines and markets. 101edu is headquartered in New York City and was founded by Dr. Justin Weinberg and Igor Belyayev.

Participated · Series B · Oct 2019

Techtonic provides product-driven custom software development with an onshore delivery model and operates an accredited apprenticeship program that serves as a service-to-talent pipeline. The company pioneered the Techtonic Apprenticeship in 2012, a fully accredited program registered with the U.S. Department of Labor. Techtonic positions itself as both a software development partner and a talent generation partner, delivering development services while training apprentices. The company plans to expand its onshore software development and apprenticeship offerings across the United States and to scale the apprenticeship program outside Colorado into several new cities. The funding will also be used for investment in employees and sales and marketing initiatives. Techtonic was founded in 2006 and is led by CEO Heather Terenzio.

Participated · Series A · May 2019

PeopleGrove provides a Career Access Platform that delivers career exploration, career navigation, mentorship, and alumni engagement tools for universities and their students and alumni. The platform serves more than 450 customers, including 60% of the top 100 U.S. universities, and gives access to over 20 million students and alumni; it has facilitated more than 1,000,000 mentorship connections. In a survey of 1,638 student users, one in three reported obtaining a job or internship because of connections made inside PeopleGrove. With new funding, the company plans to expand product innovations, invest in its customer-facing teams, and pursue strategic acquisitions to strengthen its offering. PeopleGrove also plans to publish research-based career and alumni benchmark reports, release its first full-length book, and announce dates for its annual PeopleGrove Innovators conference. Founded in 2015 and based in San Francisco, the company is actively hiring to support these objectives. PeopleGrove operates an online platform that enables universities to connect students with alumni, mentors, instructors, staff, and peers. The platform launched in 2015 with Stanford University as a close development partner and now partners with over 180 client institutions, including Kansas State, Clemson, the University of Michigan, Cornell, Wellesley, Williams, and UMUC. Led by CEO Adam Saven, the company provides support systems across Enrollment, Academic, Career, and Alumni success. PeopleGrove closed a $4.7m Series A financing to accelerate growth. The company plans to use the funds to increase investment in product and engineering, further develop offerings across the entire student lifecycle, and selectively expand its leadership team. No operating metrics such as revenue or user counts were provided in the article.

Participated · Equity · Apr 2019

Credly, launched in 2012 and led by CEO Jonathan Finkelstein, is a New York City–based digital credentials company. It provides thousands of employers, training organizations, associations, certification programs and workforce development initiatives with a platform to translate learning experiences into professional opportunities using digital credentials. The platform offers enterprise-class tools that generate data-driven insights to help organizations attract, engage, develop and retain talent, address skills gaps, and highlight opportunities through a global network of credential issuers. Last year Credly acquired Acclaim, Pearson's digital credential business, expanding its footprint. In April 2019 the company raised $11.1m in new funding, bringing total funding to date to $18.2m. Investors in the round included Zoma Capital, Strada Education Network, New Markets Venture Partners, University Ventures, Pearson, Lumina Foundation and Lion Brothers Company. Credly is a NYC-based enterprise-class digital credential service that issues, verifies, shares and manages digital credentials and open badges. The platform enables organizations to officially verify skills and competencies, distribute portable and secure digital credentials and open badges, and gain actionable data and insights. Its users include thousands of educational institutions, industry associations, employers and workforce development programs. Led by founder and CEO Jonathan Finkelstein, Credly has raised more than $7M in total funding. In this round it raised $4.6M, which it intends to use to accelerate development efforts. The company focuses on delivering enterprise features for credential management and data-driven insights. Credly provides an enterprise-class platform that enables organizations to officially verify skills and competencies, distribute portable and secure digital credentials and open badges, and gain actionable data and insights. The system is used by thousands of educational institutions, companies, and professional associations to validate and acknowledge learner, employee, and member competencies. Led by founder and CEO Jonathan Finkelstein, Credly focuses on credential management and distribution workflows for institutions and employers. The company closed a $2.5M seed financing, bolstering its early-stage financial position. The platform emphasizes portability and security of credentials and delivers analytics to its customers. No additional future plans beyond the product and customer focus are specified in the article.

Participated · Equity · Apr 2019

Motimatic provides a motivation system that leverages advertising networks to achieve social good. Its platform is designed to help universities, health care providers, financial services firms and employers improve key outcomes. The system guides and inspires students, patients, consumers and employees to adopt better behaviors and reach long-term goals such as graduating from college or improving health. Led by founder and CEO Alan Tripp, the company targets multiple sectors with its product. The recent funding will be used to accelerate the company’s growth across those sectors. Motimatic is based in San Francisco, CA. Motimatic combines behavioral science with advertising techniques to deliver personalized motivational messages to college students through social media and digital communications networks. Its system draws from a library of more than 1,000 messages and personalizes the experience for each student based on academic and demographic characteristics. Messages are delivered via Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, SMS and email, appearing in place of the online advertising students would normally encounter. The platform optimizes distribution of motivational messages to specific students to influence persistence and completion. Led by co-founder and CEO Alan Tripp, the company has recently added seven new university customers and more than 10,000 students. Motimatic is based in San Francisco, California.