The web-based school analytics platform Kickboard, based in New Orleans, announced today it has raised $2M in a Series A funding round. The round was led by New Markets Venture Partners and Two Sigma Ventures, in addition to the nearly 20 local investors rumored to have participated. This recent round adds to the $800,000 Kickboard has already raised.
Last year during New Orleans Entrepreneur Week, Kickboard Founder and CEO Jennifer Medbery was among 26 entrepreneurs to raise $325,750 in seed capital and access to investors. Kickboard was the winner of the Coulter IDEApitch, which won Medbery a trip to Silicon Valley for meetings with key investors. Kickboard was off to a great start this time last year and we can only image where the company will be a year from now.
“With this funding we plan to expand our team and invest in further product development, particularly enhanced dashboards that offer new ways to visualize student performance, including shared information from other tools teachers and school leaders use,” said Medbery. “In a performance-based culture, it is imperative that teachers, students and families have greater visibility into all elements of student performance so that they can take informed, decisive action and improve student outcomes.”
Kickboard enables schools to improve data-driven teaching, increase collaboration among educators, better facilitate family communication, and advance a culture of performance school-wide. Think of it as, “going beyond the grade book,” as one Kickboard representative has said.
“Kickboard has created a unique and powerful platform that makes it possible for teachers and school leaders to easily and efficiently collect, analyze and act on student behavior and academic data,” said Elizabeth Chou of New Market Venture Partners. “We recognize the wide-reaching and positive impact Kickboard can have on students’ lives and we look forward to helping the company expand and grow.”
Kickboard said that over 200 schools already use the platform to, “support their performance-based culture and increase alignment, consistency and real-time visibility of student performance information.” Although most schools adopt the platform school wide, Kickboard announced back in November they were offering free starter kits to individuals and small teams of teachers to give more wide-ranging access to the platform.
For more information about Kickboard, visit www.kickboardforteachers.com. Follow Kickboard on Twitter and like them on Facebook for future updates.