Graduation! Congrats Aspire Accelerator 2015 Class

They may not be collecting a diploma or posing for photos in their cap and gown, but I feel like a proud parent on graduation day as we celebrate the five ed-tech organizations from our inaugural Aspire Accelerator class. The program, which kicked off in May, is coming to a close this week and we’re gathering in the San Francisco Bay Area for a few final days of hard work – and a little bit of merriment, too!

The Aspire Accelerator companies will have a host of meetings and networking opportunities with members of the technology and investor communities before heading to the Re/Code Mobile conference tomorrow. On Thursday, the companies will have a space to demo their products and services at the Innovation Space at the Global Silicon Valley Pioneer Summit.

The participating organizations have thrived in the Aspire Accelerator and there are many achievements to applaud. All together, these Aspire Accelerator participants have impacted more than 2,000,000 students, 200,000 teachers, and 4,500 schools throughout the United States. Click on each organization’s name to learn more about their experience. Some highlights include:

• Lea(R)n announced the closing of its Seed Round of funding and released a fascinating white-paper on ed-tech usage.
• MindBlown Labs on-boarded key new team members and is rolling out a completely updated version of its game and teacher tools.
• EduCanon rolled out a brand new website design, a dashboard for teacher collaboration, and functionality around its video and question content libraries. Over 100,000 teachers are now using the platform.
• GradGuru launched in a new Community College District, finalized deployment in another District, and closed a new customer so that they now reach over 200,000 students. GradGuru also raised $150,000 in new contributions and upgraded the designs for its website and mobile applications.
• Quill signed up 12 new schools and launched progress reports to give teachers’ a clearer view of student progress. Quill has now passed 100,000 students on the platform!

I can’t wait to see what these teams will accomplish as they launch into their next chapter armed with the knowledge and resources they’ve gained from the Aspire Accelerator. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this highlight video from their time with us. We’ll be keeping in touch as they journey on and will keep you posted here.

Now, on to the next class – stay tuned for the 2016 Aspire Accelerator application info!