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Venture Capital News: MasteryConnect Raises $15.2M in Series B

2014-09-25
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, Education technology leader MasteryConnect today announced it has secured $15.2 million in Series B funding.
Education technology leader MasteryConnect today announced it has secured $15.2 million in Series B funding, which will accelerate the company's mission to empower educators with a platform to monitor levels of student understanding in real time and help them personalize learning and improve outcomes for students in K-12 education.

The funding round, which brings MasteryConnect's total private funding to more than $24 million, was led by Trinity Ventures with additional participation from Pelion Ventures and Catamount Ventures. In connection with the funding round, Larry Orr, general partner at Trinity Ventures, will join MasteryConnect's board of directors, marking his 20th investment during his tenure with the firm.

'At MasteryConnect's core is a belief in teachers, and that the right technology makes it possible for teachers to personalize education at scale. Teachers are critical, and suggesting we can replace educators with technology is tantamount to suggesting you can replace me as a parent. Teachers do the work, and we're honored to provide a platform to help,' said Cory Reid, CEO of MasteryConnect. 'This funding round is further validation of our mission and will give us additional flexibility to build the tools today's educators need, many of which are free.'

The funding announcement comes amid exponential growth for MasteryConnect, whose technology is currently utilized in 85 percent of U.S. school districts across all states and in more than 175 countries, reaching 21 million students and 1 million teachers. To meet growing demand, MasteryConnect has more than doubled its employee base, expanding from 35 employees in March 2014 to more than 70 today.

In June, MasteryConnect acquired Cambridge, Mass.-based Socrative, a student response system that increases classroom engagement, for $5 million in cash and stock. The Socrative acquisition adds functionality such as intra-instruction assessment and educational games to MasteryConnect's growing suite of tools for personalizing K-12 education.

MasteryConnect's product suite can be accessed here.

'We believe mastery-based learning is the future of education, but there has been a dearth of benchmark and formative assessment products to help teachers and students succeed,' said Larry Orr, General Partner at Trinity Ventures. 'With the nationwide adoption formative assessment becoming the norm, most notably through state and common core standards, the time has come for a platform to help teachers manage the vital process of personalizing instruction more efficiently and effectively.'

About MasteryConnect
MasteryConnect is a market leader in curriculum, assessment and mastery learning tools for K-12. Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, MasteryConnect makes it much easier for teachers to identify and track students levels of understanding against any set of standards, so they can engage more deeply with students. MasteryConnect supports teachers via its Mastery Learning Platform, as well as through their numerous apps on all Web-enabled devices. For more information, visit www.masteryconnect.com.

About Trinity Ventures
Trinity Ventures is a top-tier venture capital firm combining business insight, practical expertise and a personal touch to help start-ups win big. For over eleven funds, Trinity has helped passionate entrepreneurs with breakthrough ideas transform markets and lives. Trinity's investment team takes a collaborative approach and believes in personal engagement, mutual respect and goal alignment to deliver out-sized returns to entrepreneurs and investors. The firm invests in early stage technology companies with emphases on Cloud and Mobile Infrastructure, Software-as-a-Service, Digital Media, and Social and Mobile Commerce. For more information, visit www.trinityventures.com.
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