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Venture Capital News: Nearpod Raises $21M in Series B

2017-03-06
AVENTURA, FL, Ed-tech platform that lets K-12 teachers find, create and distribute digital learning experiences, has closed $21M in Series B funding led by Insight Venture Partners.
Today, Nearpod, the ed-tech platform that lets K-12 teachers find, create and distribute digital learning experiences, announces that it has closed $21 million in Series B funding led by Insight Venture Partners. Existing investors Reach Capital, GSV Acceleration, Krillion Ventures and AGP Miami also participated in the round. Brad Twohig, Peter Segall and Nikitas Koutoupes of Insight Venture Partners will join Nearpod's cofounders Guido Kovalskys and Felipe Sommer as well as Jennifer Carolan of Reach Capital on the company's board of directors.

'Nearpod is in the enviable position of having created a product that is both beloved by teachers and students and sustainably monetizable,' commented Brad Twohig, Managing Director at Insight Venture Partners. 'It's a rare feat in the education industry to find both traits in a single company, and in that regard, Nearpod is in a class of its own'.

The news comes after a year of record growth for the company. Nearpod expanded its suite of services to include virtual reality-based lessons with more than four million students experiencing a virtual field trip in 2016 and recently launched Nearpod for ELL at Miami-Dade public schools, one of the largest ELL districts in the country. Nearpod for ELL provides teachers with more than 500 ready-to-teach lessons designed specifically for the fastest growing student demographic: non-native English speakers. Additionally, Nearpod was recognized as one of the fastest growing private companies with a three-year revenue growth rate of 1,320 percent by Inc 500.

'Since the beginning of Nearpod, we have worked closely with co-founders Guido, Felipe, Emiliano and the rest of the team and are very proud of this important milestone,' says Jennifer Carolan, Co-founder and General Partner at Reach Capital. 'This is also encouraging news for our ecosystem, as Nearpod is proving that edtech startups servicing the K-12 market can dramatically improve how teachers engage students, while also becoming great long-term businesses. With depth and experience in education, Insight Venture Partners is an exceptional partner to scale Nearpod to its fullest potential'

Nearpod's suite of products helps teachers find, create and deliver interactive and compelling classroom learning experiences. Its catalog of more than 3,500 standards-aligned lessons spans every K-12 topic, from digital citizenship to algebra, and incorporates interactive assessments that research from the University of Minnesota has shown is the most powerful for knowledge retention.

'The demand for innovative classroom solutions like Nearpod is exploding thanks to increasingly affordable devices and the realization by educational decision makers that technology increases student engagement and can improve learning outcomes,' said Guido Kovalskys, CEO and cofounder of Nearpod. 'There is still so much work to be done to help teachers and we're excited to bring Insight Venture Partners' deep K-12 expertise aboard as we address the real opportunity ahead of us to increase classroom engagement and improve the education system'

In addition, and unlike anything existing on the market, Nearpod offers exclusive features for schools and school districts to support administrators and educators with professional development, dedicated training services and a series of exclusive features and content designed exclusively for the use of educational institutions. For more information on these services, visit: nearpod.com/schools

Free to use, Nearpod offers premium tiers for classrooms, schools and districts. Learn more at Nearpod.com

About Nearpod:
Nearpod, co-founded by Guido Kovalskys, Felipe Sommer and Emiliano Abramzon, is an award-winning education technology company focused on developing digital learning tools, virtual reality and interactive content across mobile devices that provides teachers an easy and efficient way to leverage technology in the classroom.

Nearpod has offices in Aventura, Florida and San Francisco, California and is backed by notable investors like Insight Venture Partners, Reach Capital, Storm Ventures, the Stanford StartX Fund, the Knight Enterprise Fund, Arsenal Ventures, as well as Marc Benioff (the CEO of Salesforce) and Scott Cook (founder and Chairman of Intuit) and his wife, Signe Ostby.

For more information visit nearpod.com

About Insight Venture Partners:
Insight Venture Partners is a leading global venture capital and private equity firm investing in high-growth software and internet-enabled companies that are driving transformative change in their industries.

Founded in 1995, Insight has raised more than $13 billion and invested in more than 250 companies worldwide. Our mission is to find, fund and work successfully with visionary executives providing them with practical, hands-on growth expertise to foster long-term success. For more information on Insight and all of its investments, visit http://www.Insightpartners.com or follow us on Twitter: @Insightpartners.
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