Remind101, innovator of the leading mobile communication platform for the classroom, has closed $3.5 million in Series A financing. The Social + Capital Partnership led the round, with participation from First Round Capital, entrepreneur Yuri Milner and additional seed-round investors. The company also announced that Chamath Palihapitiya, founder and managing partner of The Social + Capital Partnership, has joined Remind101's board of directors.

Remind101's first product is a mobile-first platform for K-12 teachers to communicate, transact and interact easily and safely with their students and their students' parents. It addresses a persistent and frustrating problem faced by teachers every day: finding an effective channel for reaching students and parents to let them know about timely information such as homework reminders, field trip updates and information for upcoming parent-teacher conferences. Remind101's mobile platform drives parental engagement to improve the overall educational experience for the better. The company recently expanded the reach of its platform with the launch of mobile apps for iPhone, iPad and Android.

The funding from three prominent investors whose previous investments include Facebook, Twitter, Yammer and Zynga enables Remind101 to accelerate its product development plans with the support of a seasoned team and to grow the company to address the rapid adoption of its core product. Since its launch only 20 months ago, Remind101 has been adopted by more than 10 percent of the entire K-12 teacher population in the United States. Today, more than 400,000 teachers are using Remind101 to communicate with more than 6 million students and parents.

'We think there is huge potential for technology that enables educators to boost engagement with their students using the ultimate personal computer: the mobile phone,' said Brett Kopf, Remind101's CEO and co-founder. 'We're extremely pleased to welcome The Social + Capital Partnership to our team. Chamath and his colleagues share our vision for the utility that our platform can bring to the education system and how we can build an extremely valuable business at the same time.'

'Remind101 is the next generation of education technology company: one that solves real problems in the education space by smartly and uniquely applying mobile in the classroom,' said Chamath Palihapitiya, founder and managing partner at The Social + Capital Partnership. 'Remind101's product provides a robust but simple solution for teachers to connect with students and parents where they already are: on their phones. The speed at which Remind101 is growing will enable the team to help drive world-changing and highly disruptive new models of education such as the flipped classroom, 1:1 and BYOD - and make these accessible to even more educators. I'm very excited for the future of the company and welcome them to the Social Capital family.'

'In our two years of using Remind101 we've found it to be an unparalleled service to help connect the classroom with the home. As a former teacher and now administrator at the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school district, I can't imagine not using Remind101,' said Steven W. Anderson, director of instructional technology at Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools. 'We've found the benefits so rich and the safety features so aligned with our needs that Remind101 is now an integral part of our district communications policy. For all WSFC teachers, Remind101 is the standard way to use text messaging to communicate with more than 53,000 students.'

How Remind101 works
Remind101 provides a free, safe messaging service for teachers to communicate with students and parents via text or email. Teachers sign up for an account, create classes or groups, gather subscribers, and start messaging. All without ever sharing their personal cell phone number, or collecting phone numbers from their students or parents. Some of the core benefits of using Remind101 include:

Safety - teachers never sees students phone number and visa versa, preserving privacy and ensuring safety;
Accessibility - students and parents use mobile phones or emails to receive messages from their teachers, without the need for a smartphone;
One-to-many - messages go to the entire class, and students and parents can't reply, saving teachers from having to manage another inbox;
Audit trail - a log of all sent messages is kept if needed for any administration or audit needs.

About First Round Capital
First Round Capital is an entirely new kind of venture capital firm built from the ground up to help the world's best entrepreneurs build better companies. We invest at the seed stage and our experienced partners work side-by-side with founders to help them win. But, we don't stop there. Our Platform Team solely supports our entrepreneurs in four key areas: business development, recruiting, research and learning. We help connect our entrepreneurs with the resources, talent, and knowledge to take their companies farther, faster. We've been fortunate enough to partner with companies like Square, One Kings Lane, Fab, Hotel Tonight, Path, Climate Corporation, Uber, Mint, Bazaarvoice, and 200 other world-changing companies. We invest nationally with offices in San Francisco, New York City and Philadelphia. To learn more about how we're turning venture capital on its head, visit: www.firstround.com.

About The Social + Capital Partnership
The Social + Capital Partnership ('Social Capital') is a partnership of philanthropists, technologists and capitalists utilizing venture capital as a force to create value and change on a global scale. The Partnership is based in Palo Alto, California and is on the web at s23p.com.

About Remind101
We believe great education is the first step to solving many of the world's most pressing problems. Our purpose is to build products to make it incredibly easy for teachers to provide that education. Working hand-in-hand with teachers, Remind101 aims to eliminate communication obstacles between teachers, students and parents. Across all grade levels and institution types, Remind101 provides a safe, simple communication solution to help teachers extend their classrooms. Millions of teachers, students and parents rely on Remind101 to power their classroom communication. You can find Remind101 on Twitter (@remind101), Facebook (facebook.com/remind101), Pinterest (pinterest.com/remind101), or on the web at www.remind101.com.