Schoology Secures $1.25 Million Series A Funding

NEW YORK, June 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Schoology (www.schoology.com), a cloud-based learning management system and configurable social network for academic institutions, has secured its first institutional round of venture capital funding from Meakem Becker Venture Capital, following a successful angel investment from a prominent New York investor in May 2009.  Glen Meakem and Alan Veeck of Meakem Becker will be joining the Schoology board. Schoology will use the funding to expand its workforce and grow its service.

Schoology leverages the familiarity of popular social media tools to improve communication and collaboration inside and outside of the classroom.  In particular, Schoology provides a full suite of learning management tools, including an online gradebook, attendance, test/quizzes, discussion boards, blogs, homework dropboxes, and collaborative course and group pages. The social network permits cross-school networking allowing for multiple organizations to participate in shared classes, groups, and discussions.

"As the popularity of social media continues to grow, we are committed to bringing these same technologies into the classroom by creating a safe and secure academic environment," said Jeremy Friedman, founder and CEO of Schoology. "Our goal is to create a fun and engaging tool that students and teachers are already familiar with using, while eliminating cost as a barrier to adoption."

Academic institutions, including primary, secondary and higher education, have granular control over how their system is configured. School-wide privacy settings are set by administrators and all features can be turned on/off depending on user characteristics such as grade level.

Schoology provides an enterprise level platform for individuals, schools, and districts free of charge. By offering a free platform, institutions can focus on introducing new technologies rather than being limited by budget constraints. The system can be enhanced through the purchase of premium add-ons such as custom branding, support packages, and other additional features.

Schoology offers integration capabilities with school reporting and information systems. The company is preparing to release a full API in July 2010 that will allow schools or individuals to develop custom applications and integrations.

About Schoology

Based in New York, NY, Schoology is a learning management system and configurable social network for education. The platform leverages the familiarity of popular social media tools to improve communication and collaboration inside and outside of the classroom, while still supplying an enterprise level solution to academic institutions. Schoology was founded in the May 2009 by Jeremy Friedman, Ryan Hwang, and Timothy Trinidad after graduating from Washington University in St. Louis.

About Meakem Becker Venture Capital

Meakem Becker Venture Capital was founded in 2006 by Glen Meakem and Dave Becker. Glen was Founder, Chairman, and CEO of FreeMarkets, formerly the leading provider of internet deployed software and services for automating the sourcing processes of Global 1000 companies. Dave was FreeMarkets' President and COO. After successfully launching, managing the explosive growth, record breaking IPO, and final sale of FreeMarkets, Glen and Dave founded Meakem Becker Venture Capital to help other entrepreneurs build leading companies.

SOURCE Schoology