Pear Deck, A Leader in Real-Time K-12 Classroom Engagement SaaS, Announces Investment from Growth Street Partners

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Mar 22, 2017, 08:00 ET

IOWA CITY, Iowa, March 22, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Growth Street Partners and existing investors, including Village Capital, Hyde Park Venture Partners, and AOL Co-Founder Steve Case/Rise of the Rest, have made a $4.0 million growth equity investment in Pear Deck, a provider of real-time classroom engagement SaaS. Pear Deck's software enables K-12 teachers, schools, and school districts to engage students, improve educational outcomes, and enhance the teacher experience.

Pear Deck's software allows students to respond in real-time to a teacher's lesson with text responses, drawings, and other interactive strategies that the teacher can see immediately. Benefiting from the rapid growth in "one student to one device" classrooms and Google Classroom, Pear Deck already has customers in over 40 states, including some of the country's largest school districts.

"Growth Street's culture and values align perfectly with Pear Deck," said Riley Eynon-Lynch, co-founder and CEO of Pear Deck. "We are thrilled to welcome them to the Pear Deck family. The partnership will allow us to accelerate growth, invest in product, optimize go-to-market, and remain focused on our primary mission of helping teachers engage all of their students, every day." Pear Deck's focus on efficacy and the software's demonstrated success with students is validated by third parties. As published in a 2015 New York Department of Education Office of Innovation & EdTech iZone and Johns Hopkins study, Pear Deck helps to increase student interest in class material and improve students' understanding of content.

"Growth Street is very excited to partner with Pear Deck," said Nathan Grossman, Co-Founder of Growth Street Partners. "Built by educators, it is not surprising students, teachers, principals, and superintendents across the country all love Pear Deck. Our partnership will help extend the company's reach, engage more students, and improve educational outcomes."

The investment in Pear Deck is the first for Growth Street Partners, a San Francisco-based early growth capital firm. In conjunction with the investment, Stephen Wolfe, Co-Founder of Growth Street Partners, and Victoria Fram, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Village Capital, will join the Board of Directors. "Growth Street's partnership with Pear Deck is an important milestone in the company's growth and will further the software's rapid adoption within the K-12 market," added Victoria Fram. "The company has demonstrated impressive traction over a short time frame and is now well positioned to scale in a growing market."

Pear Deck
Founded by educators in 2014, Pear Deck software helps schools optimize their 1:1 programs through interactive, synchronized presentations. Pear Deck blurs the line between instruction and assessment to promote active learning and data-driven instruction. A Pear Deck is a presentation displayed on a projector and student devices simultaneously, allowing teachers to build interactive slides that invite or require responses on individual devices and then display visualizations of aggregate data on the teacher's dashboard or projector in real-time. Pear Deck improves student engagement and educational outcomes, while giving teachers deep insight into each individual student, the mistakes they are making, and the help they need, all in real-time. To learn more about Pear Deck, please visit www.peardeck.com.

Growth Street Partners
Growth Street Partners provides early growth capital to vertically-focused, rapidly growing SaaS and technology-enabled services companies located in underserved U.S. markets. The firm partners with founders who lived the problem their business is now solving. Growth Street targets investments of $3-10 million in companies with $1-5 million of annual run-rate revenue. By providing a unique balance of capital and help, Growth Street allows entrepreneurs to accelerate their businesses without losing control. To learn more about Growth Street Partners, please visit www.growthstreetpartners.com.

SOURCE Growth Street Partners