Canadian edtech startup Showbie, a hybrid learning platform providing tools for educators to transform their classrooms, has raised CAD $5 million in a Series A funding round to enhance its platform.
The round was led by Vancouver-based Rhino Ventures, with participation from Point Nine Capital, Azure Capital, and several other Canadian and international investors, according to a statement.
Founded in 2012 by Colin Bramm and Roy Pombeiro, Showbie offers an extensive suite of educational tools in one simple and easy-to-use app. The platform is designed to increase teacher productivity, aid in identifying struggling students, and allow administrators to follow classroom learning objectives. The startup claims its platform is now used by more than 3 million educators, schools, and districts in over 135 countries.
Showbie combines all of the essential tools for assignments, feedback and communication in one app, giving teachers and students more time for teaching and learning. It enables teachers to give rich and differentiated feedback to students of all learning abilities; organize their classrooms and connect with their students, empower them to help students share files and ideas with each other, and more.
Commenting on the latest development, Colin Bramm, Co-founder and CEO of Showbie, said in a statement,
“We are thrilled to be partnering with Rhino Ventures on our Series A financing. With this funding, we can accelerate our efforts towards offering easy to use, yet powerful, tools for teachers and entire school systems to manage the hurdles of at-home learning, as well as enhancing physical classrooms. The massive change in education due to COVID-19 and the global market reaction to use digital tools was a rallying cry for us that we had to help. With Rhino’s support, we will be able to make a positive impact on student success during this period and beyond.”
According to a statement, the new funding will enable Showbie to accelerate product features around school communication, analytics, and content to provide an all-in-one solution for schools to manage needs for remote and in-classroom learning.
Issuing a statement on the funding, Jay Rhind, Partner at Rhino Ventures, said,
“The Showbie team believes that the ideal form of education is personalized, competency based, on-demand, and rooted in student outcomes; we couldn’t agree more. Showbie is the most robust hybrid learning platform that digitizes the classroom with rich communication (synchronous and asynchronous), gamified exercises, personalized feedback, and a central repository of student work. Central to every investment is our conviction that we are backing the winning team in a market that has a venture scale problem. Colin and the Showbie team are pioneers of hybrid learning environments in a time when educators and students alike need its solution. We are continuously humbled when an entrepreneur selects us as a partner to support them in realizing their full potential; Showbie is no exception.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Showbie granted over $1 million worth of free software licenses to schools and districts to aid in the transition to remote learning. The company also recently added a video chat function within its application – making Showbie a complete, all-in-one solution for online learning, whether students are in the classroom or learning from home.
Meanwhile, the latest funding has taken the Edmonton-based startup’s total raised to date to CAD $9 million. The company had earlier raised $2.3 million in seed funding in 2015.
