Total amount raised
$70.3 Millions
Latest funding date
03/01/2019
Location
Title
Newsela has successfully raised significant funding over multiple rounds, establishing itself as a key player in the educational technology sector. The platform offers a range of products designed to enhance student motivation and support teachers in delivering effective instruction.
Keep reading to explore the intricacies of Newsela's fundraising journey and the investors backing this innovative platform.
What Is Newsela?
Newsela, founded in 2013, is a content and assessment platform designed to enhance student learning and teacher instruction. The company is based in New York City and was established by Matthew Gross.
Newsela offers a range of products aimed at unlocking student motivation, inspiring teachers, and driving long-lasting learning outcomes. These include content-rich literacy instruction, social studies materials, science integration, writing feedback, and real-time assessment tools.
With a dedicated team, Newsela continues to grow, employing over 200 individuals who are committed to transforming education through innovative solutions.
How Much Funding Has Newsela Raised?
- Seed Funding Round
- Amount Raised: $1.2 million
- Date: October 11, 2013
- Lead Investors: New Schools Venture Fund and Kapor Capital
- Motivation Behind the Round: To expand Newsela's offering of daily news articles at multiple reading levels and Common Core-aligned quizzes.
- Series A Funding Round
- Amount Raised: $4.1 million
- Date: September 17, 2014
- Motivation Behind the Round: To help any student become a master reader by enhancing Newsela’s app, which delivers news articles tailored to different reading levels for K-12 students.
- Series B Round
- Amount Raised: $15 million
- Date: October 6, 2015
- Lead Investors: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB)
- Motivation Behind the Round: To accelerate machine learning capabilities and expand Newsela's footprint to help more teachers, students, and school districts with effective literacy learning tools, and to increase student engagement with their learning materials.
- Series C Round
- Amount Raised: $50 million
- Date: March 13, 2019
- Lead Investors: TCV (Technology Crossover Ventures)
- Motivation Behind the Round: To add more reading content, develop more tools for teachers to measure student reading comprehension, and potentially expand into multimedia content. The funding will also support the creation of preconfigured collections of content to fit districts’ curricula and further technological investments.
Total Amount Raised: $70.3 million
Current Valuation: Not publicly disclosed
Key Investors
- TCV (Technology Crossover Ventures)
- Details: TCV is a growth equity firm known for investing in technology companies. Woody Marshall, a general partner at TCV, joined Newsela’s board of directors.
- Investment Focus Areas: Education technology, music streaming, online tutoring
- Notable Investments: Spotify, Varsity Tutors, Capella Education
- Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB)
- Details: KPCB is a venture capital firm that partners with entrepreneurs to build pioneering companies. Brook Byers, a partner at KPCB, joined Newsela’s board of directors.
- Investment Focus Areas: Disruptive ideas, world-changing businesses, various stages of growth
- Notable Investments: Amazon, Google, Twitter
- Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan
- Details: Founders of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which focuses on personalized learning, curing disease, and connecting people. They invested in Newsela during its Series B round.
- Investment Focus Areas: Personalized learning, curing disease, connecting people
- Notable Investments: Various initiatives under the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
- Kapor Capital
- Details: Kapor Capital is a venture capital firm that invests in seed-stage tech startups. They participated in Newsela's seed funding round.
- Investment Focus Areas: Seed-stage tech startups, closing gaps of access and opportunity
- Notable Investments: Not specified in the sources
- Owl Ventures
- Details: Owl Ventures is a venture capital fund that invests in education technology companies. They participated in Newsela's Series B round.
- Investment Focus Areas: Education technology
- Notable Investments: Various education technology companies
What's Next for Newsela?
Newsela stands at the cusp of significant growth opportunities. With its platform already in use in 90% of U.S. K-12 schools, the potential to expand reading content and integrate multimedia is vast. The company aims to create preconfigured collections tailored to district curricula, enhancing its appeal to educators and administrators.
Future fundraising seems promising, given the recent $50 million investment from TCV. This financial backing could pave the way for further rounds, enabling Newsela to scale its operations and possibly pursue strategic acquisitions to diversify its offerings.
However, challenges loom. The literacy startup market is unforgiving, and converting a large user base into paying customers remains a hurdle. Additionally, competition from other edtech platforms and the need to continuously update content to stay relevant are ongoing concerns.
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