Most startups pitch for dough in an office or on a stage-but how about on a bus?
CEO and founder Notebowl Andrew Chaifetz had no idea who the gentleman was sitting next to him on the shuttle bus from Tuscon to Phoenix, but ended up sharing his vision for Notebowl. The gentleman turned out to be a founder of Hong Kong-based MagniPro Ventures who saw the potential, and the rest is history.
Today, Notebowl, a comprehensive platform for universities that goes beyond the standard learning management system (LMS) by putting the entire university experience in one place, announced a $600K seed round led by MagniPro Ventures, led by Zhengyu Wu and Tianpai Hong. This round brings their total raise to $910K in investment since its founding in July 2011.
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“The investor was fully supportive of our vision,” Chaifetz said. “It’s awesome to have someone who saw our vision.”
Chaifetz said while they were talking with other interested investors, MagniPro Ventures ended up having the most optimistic attitude-a characteristic they needed from a partner.
“[The relationship] is amazing, especially the optimism of trying to build something,” Chaifetz said. “I like investors that think ‘What if this did work? And how big of a product could this become? Or this actually can happen and shape education.'”
The terms of the deal were undisclosed, but Chaifetz was certainly pleased.
“It was an unbelievable deal that we couldn’t pass up – it worked out very well for both of us,” he said.
This round will be used to build out Notebowl’s product. “We are very excited to use these funds to continue development on our campus life features and mobile applications on iOS and Android,” Chaifetz said. “Building out these portions of our platform will further validate NoteBowl and allow us to continue our mission to improve student success in and out of the classroom, develop the 1.0 version of the platform and get it fully implemented at universities.”
Moving forward, Chaifetz said they will be adding three new positions within the month and plan to raise another round in summer 2015.
Read more about Notebowl’s growth at AZTB
New information has been added about total funding and investors since the original post
