Edtech startup MasteryConnect adds $3.425M to Series A

The Common Core standards technology platform brings its Series A to $8.975M

A while back, I watched Waiting for Superman, and I got all fired up at first—and then I remembered that teachers are the pack mules of society. We throw all of our shit at them and tell them to carry it up the mountain alone—and if they fall off a cliff, taking our Bermuda shorts and Tommy Bahama shirts with them, then it’s due to their own failing. 

With as many as one out of every two teachers quitting in their first five years of teaching (and nearly 10% quitting before the end of their first year!), they clearly need all the help and support they can get. And so we have platforms like MasteryConnect, an education technology provider that streamlines assessment so that teachers can spend more time teaching and less time struggling to keep up with standardized tests.

MasteryConnect announced Wednesday that it has raised an additional $3.425 million as part of its Series A round, bringing the total to $8.975 million. the new investment was led by Catamount Ventures, with participation from the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, Deborah Quazzo of GSV Advisors, Learn Capital, and existing angel investors.

Founded in 2009, the Salt Lake City-based company is replacing burdensome end-of-the-year assessments with real-time reporting about how well students are connecting with and learning the material in compliance with common core and state standards. The platform allows teachers to visualize student mastery with simple color-coded hues (red, yellow, or green), and assess with any type of content they want. They can also get real-time reports on students’ mastery and identify which ones are struggling and need remediation.

Teachers are now using MasteryConnect in over 36,000 classrooms across 10,000 districts. Teachers have collectively tracked 18 million scores in line with common core and state standards.

"Catamount Ventures is excited to accelerate MasteryConnect's already rapid growth in putting mastery learning tools in the hands of teachers," said Catamount Ventures partner Tory Patterson, in a statement. "MasteryConnect is enabling a new era in education where real-time information about student mastery of standards is empowering teachers and improving student outcomes."

MasteryConnect’s Common Core app has seen nearly one million downloads to date, and the company recently released its Next Generation Science Standards app in partnership with the National Science Teachers Association. MasteryConnect also recently became a featured app partner with Microsoft Education.

"We’re excited to be able to expand the work we are doing, empowering teachers to identify what students know and don’t know, and provide timely interventions in their classrooms," said Mick Hewitt, CEO and co-founder of MasteryConnect, in a statement.