Pathbrite tacks on another $4M for digital portfolios

The company adds to its $2.5M Series A round from ACT and ReThink Education

Someday, the traditional two-page resume will be a relic of ancient society, along with printers, flip phones, camera film, and non-self-driving cars. One company that’s doing its part to move the evolution along is Pathbrite, which specializes in dynamic digital education portfolios. The company announced Monday that it has raised $4 million in additional Series A funding from college assessment leader ACT, with help from ReThink Education, Josh Mailman, and existing angel investors.

Pathbrite previously raised $2.5 million back in June, so the additional funding brings the round to $6.5 million. The company has raised $8 million altogether.

When we covered Pathbrite in June, the company was just launching out of private beta with 5,000 users. Since then, CEO Heather Hiles says that Pathbrite has expanded to nearly 100 schools and universities. Additionally, the company has signed distribution deals with Pearson, McGraw-Hill Education, and ACT. It’s also hired 15 new employees.

Going beyond stale resumes, Pathbrite allows users to create portfolios of their work, complete with social sharing tools.  To get started, you can create a free account using the basic service, create a portfolio of your choice, and begin uploading documents and content, whether it’s official transcripts, certifications, writing and art samples, cover letters, and more.  You can choose to share the portfolio selectively with mentors, professors, or parents—or you can share it publicly with anyone who wants to take a gander.  For those who want to keep their portfolios under wraps until they’re perfect, you can make your portfolio private. 

One of the obvious challenges to creating a platform like this is getting people to use it—which means companies and applicants alike. To that end, Pathbrite has been partnering with companies who will have applicants submit their portfolios for review via Pathbrite. Last summer, Pathbrite was working on a pilot with the Burberry Corporation.

Hiles says that Pathbrite has since changed course to focus more on the educational angle.

“We've really refined our focus to increasing adoption in the classroom-both Higher Ed and K-12.  With this focus, we are able to be sure we optimize learning outcomes: course passing rates, critical thinking, and meta cognition,” said Hiles. “I feel fortunate that ReThink and ACT wanted to invest more capital so that we may stay on course and continue to focus on product development and serving our school customers.”