AUSTIN, TEX. (June 25, 2013) – Civitas Learning® today announced $8.75 million in funding led by Emergence Capital Partners, a California-based venture capital firm with a rich history of investment in technology-enabled services companies. Returning investors include Austin Ventures, First Round Capital and Floodgate. New investors include Felicis Ventures and New Markets Venture Partners.
The financing will accelerate the expansion of Civitas Learning’s predictive analytics platform and software application ecosystem. The Civitas Learning platform provides informed and valuable insights to students, faculty, advisors and administrators, ultimately helping higher education students stay in school and graduate on time. From developing personalized major and course recommendations for students to helping faculty and advisors identify students in need of outreach and support, Civitas Learning is a pioneer in helping both students and institutions achieve their goals.
“What this company is doing is truly visionary. Civitas Learning is building technology that will dramatically improve success rates for both students and institutions,” said Santiago Subotovsky, principal with Emergence Capital Partners. “It is the perfect example of using big data to ensure that everyone wins.”
Six leading higher education institutions – ranging from community colleges to four-year public universities and proprietary schools – have adopted the Civitas Learning platform. These schools have committed to a collaboration that will create a true community of data, intervention and best practices to radically improve student learning. Together, we are building a richer dataset for robust personalization, creating models that provide keener insight for student success, as well as identifying which resources are most effective and for which students.
Austin Community College, DeVry, Strayer University, University of Central Florida, University of Maryland University College, and Valencia College were chosen to work with Civitas Learning because of their cultural commitment to innovating in the interest of improving student outcomes. To date, Civitas Learning has helped these institutions capture and act on valuable insights from the more than 3 million student records and 15 million course enrollment records they collectively represent.
“We joined Civitas Learning because we believe that sharing data-informed insights on student success can transform student outcomes,” said Javier Miyares, president of University of Maryland University College. “We are excited to be part of the network that will deploy next-generation solutions to better serve students. We believe the effective use of predictive analytics is central to our students’ continued success, and our early work with Civitas Learning has exceeded our expectations.”
“Students come to higher education with big dreams,” said Charles Thornburgh, CEO and founder of Civitas Learning. “Today, far too many leave with debt and no degree. We are catalyzing a community of institutions to learn together with the best of big data – a cutting-edge analytics platform, front-line focused software applications, and insight and inquiry – to give all students the opportunity to learn well and finish strong.”
To support their effort, Civitas Learning will use this new funding to continue to hire top talent aggressively, doubling its current employee base over the next 12 months. New additions to the team will include data science and engineering resources, as well as education domain experts.
Charles Thornburgh: what this funding really means
About Emergence Capital Partners (@emergencecap)
Emergence Capital Partners, based in San Mateo, Calif., is the leading venture capital firm focused on early and growth-stage SaaS and technology-enabled services companies. Its mission is to empower business users and organizations around the globe by unleashing the power of technology-enabled Services. The firm’s investments include Salesforce.com (CRM), SuccessFactors (acquired by SAP), Yammer (acquired by Microsoft), Lithium, YouSendIt, Box, and Veeva Systems. Founded in 2003, Emergence Capital has $575 million under management. More information on Emergence Capital can be found atwww.emcap.com.
