Schoology, which develops cloud-based learning platforms for schools and colleges, has raised $6 million from New York’s FirstMark Capital, bringing its total funds raised to $9.3 million. The Manhattan startup has attracted a number of high profile school district customers by essentially entering through the back door. Schoology’s social network is a free service teachers and students can use to share lessons and coursework. Instead of spending time and money introducing its product to school districts, Schoology is able to upsell districts on a product that is already established in their schools.
Once teachers and students are using Schoology, the company is in a good position to offer its premium security, analytic and administrative features to school districts. Schoology now says it has 18,000 school district customers and 1 million users. “Schoology is breaking down the classroom walls and has become part of the daily workflow of how teachers engage with students,” says Amish Jani, Managing Director at FirstMark Capital. “This is a true, market-disrupting technology and exactly what we look for in our portfolio companies.”
Schoology’s competitors in the cloud-based educational services market include Blackboard, Edmodo (backed by investors from Facebook and LinkedIn), Moodle, and Boundless Learning, which recently closed an $8 million round of Series A funding led by Venrock.
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