ActiveClass, an early stage education technology company designed to help increase student engagement, has raised $1.9 million in seed money.
The Scottsdale-based startup will use the money to hire more employees to support growth, improve customer service and speed up product development.
“We are beyond excited for what this means not just for us at ActiveClass, but also for our current and future customers,” ActiveClass CEO and Co-founder Nate Hurst said in a statement.
The round was led by PHX Ventures, a leading software and EdTech investor in Arizona. Several angel investors and executives from Parchment and CampusLogic also participated in the seed round. Steven Morris, a former leader at CampusLogic and Scoir, Inc., joins ActiveClass as Head of Growth.
ActiveClass was founded to address growing student dropout rates and decrease the billions of dollars lost each year because of student dropout.
The company is creating social-media-like tools that university and college instructors and students can use to post, react, comment and chat with each other in real time. The ActiveClass platform also is designed to work within existing learning management systems (like Blackboard or Canvas).
“We are focused on building unique solutions that help students connect, stay connected, and improve their sense of community and belonging, no matter where they are,” said Hurst. “This money will ensure that we have proper resources to do just that.”
Read more on Arizona EdTech companies:
EdTech startup Promineo Tech raises $900,000 in seed funding