By Guest Contributor Lisa Wolfe
Things were a bit quieter in the K-12 education market’s third quarter of 2023. But with a number of significant acquisitions, more rounds of investment in established and growing companies, and individuals moving into new leadership roles, the industry is poised for a successful 2023-2024 school year. Here are some K-12 education highlights:
- Discovery Education is acquiring DreamBox Learning, a PK-12 education technology provider serving more than 6 million students and 600,000 educators nationwide.
- PowerSchool acquired Neverskip, an enterprise resource-planning software company, serving more than 1.2 million students in India. Earlier this quarter, PowerSchool announced that it would acquire school communication platform SchoolMessenger.
- Kinjo, an educational games startup that operates in Roblox, raised $6.5 million in seed funding.
- ClassWallet, a purchasing and payments platform for school districts and government agencies, raised $95 million in its first fundraising round.
- SchoolStatus acquired the school engagement platform ClassTag.
- Presence, a K-12 teletherapy company, acquired RemoteHQ’s software platform.
- Scholastic announced leadership transitions. Beth Polcari, previously president of international, has been named president of education solutions. Ken Cleary, previously CFO, is now president of international.
- Daybreak Health, a provider of in-school mental health services, raised $13 million in a Series B funding round.
- Student data validation software provider Level Data acquired Glimpse K12, a curriculum measurement tool.
- Edmentum named Mike Trimarchi as CFO.
- Daniel Ragsdale joined the White House’s Office of the National Cyber Director as deputy assistant director for workforce and education.
- Pace Center for Girls, a supportive network for middle and high schoolers, appointed J. Katrinda McQueen and Michelle Oyola McGovern to its board of trustees.
- Braintrust Tutors, a high-dosage tutoring platform for K-12 students, closed on a $2.5 million seed-funding round.
- Learning management system Go1 named Daniel Hayward as chief customer officer, Arnauld Mitre as chief content officer, Shannon Tatz as chief financial officer, and Tony Ward as chief revenue officer.
- Age of Learning named Daniel Domenech as superintendent-in-residence. The company also appointed Luci Willits as vice president of public policy.
- Avraham Kadar, M.D., founder of BrainPOP, was awarded the SIIA CODiE Lifetime Achievement Award in Education Technology, celebrating his significant long-term contributions to the education industry.
- Ready Education named Jim Brigadier as CEO.
- Newsela acquired Formative, an instruction and assessment platform.
- Gamified e-learning platform Kahoot was acquired in a $1.7B deal led by Goldman Sachs, LEGO, and others.
Who knows what the last quarter of 2023 will hold? We’ll keep watch and share more K-12 education highlights with you before the end of the year.
Lisa Wolfe is the president of L. Wolfe Communications. Founded in April 2000, L. Wolfe Communications offers its clients a network of senior, experienced public relations executives with a variety of complementary experience and expertise in public relations and communications for the education and library markets.
