Allovue acquires Rockville-based edfintech startup Equiday

An acquisition is connecting two Maryland startups that develop technology for use in education finance.

Baltimore edfintech startup Allovue is acquiring Rockville-based Equiday in a move designed to bolster its budgeting and management tools for K-12 education administrators. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“Allovue and Equiday share a belief in the power of combining cutting-edge financial technology with education data,” Allovue founder and CEO Jess Gartner said in a statement. “The acquisition of Equiday is a natural extension of Allovue’s growth strategy — rooted in our commitment to helping districts improve resource equity and realize strategic priorities for students.”

The acquisition adds a tool from Allovue meant to help school districts distribute funding more equitably. The Remington-based startup said budgeting would be an area seeing expansion when it closed a $4 million funding round last month.

Equiday, which was founded in 2018, helps districts with financial modeling, resource evaluation and strategy implementation. That company’s platform, called Allocate Pro, can serve as a “precursor” to Allovue’s existing budget product, called Balance Budget.

“The Allocate Pro tool helps districts determine how to equitably allocate dollars to schools,” Gartner said. Allovue’s Balance Budget “helps them plan those dollars as a combination of staffing rosters and non-personnel resources.”

Equiday CEO Justin Dayhoff called Allovue “a natural home” for the Technical.ly DC realLIST 2019 honoree. Along with aligning in their mutual mission to help all education dollars flow toward student and teacher needs, they are led by former teachers and work in the space Gartner named “edfintech.” They’ve also both seen a bigger spotlight on education finance tools and resource equity as the federal government implements a law called the Every Student Succeeds Act.

Allovue will continue to serve the Equiday’s customers, some of which were already mutual, Gartner said; Technical.ly DC previously reported that Prince George’s County Public Schools and Indianapolis Public Schools are among these users. Dayhoff and Equiday Chief of Marketing and Sales Megan Rainbow will join Allovue, while current CTO Guy Dayhoff will remain in an advisory capacity, Gartner said.