South Jersey edtech company raises $4M in seed funding for collaborative learning platform

A South Jersey education technology company specializing in student feedback and collaborative learning has raised $4 million in seed funding. 

Moorestown-based EdLight opened the round in the summer of 2023 and closed in November. Investors include Southern Education Foundation, Charter School Growth Fund and Backstage Capital, according to an announcement. 

EdLight founder and CEO Teryn Thomas (Courtesy)

“This funding round marks a significant step forward for EdLight,” said CEO and founder Teryn Thomas, a former school teacher and principal, “and validates our commitment to revolutionizing education through AI-driven insights.”

Last summer, EdLight was a recipient of Google for Startups Black and Latino Founders Fund, following its selection as a 2023 RealLIST Startups honoree and 2022 participation in the Google for Startups Accelerator: Black Founders. 

Founded in 2019 as a public benefit corporation, the company provides a platform that lets teachers capture and see students’ work digitally — even when it was completed on paper — and give interactive, individualized feedback. The machine learning-driven platform can identify repeated mistakes and track student progress over time.

The new funding will go towards improving EdLight’s go-to-market approach, reaching more communities and increasing capacity for its technical goals. 

“Machine learning is often cost prohibitive for small companies and this will help us significantly,” Thomas told Technical.ly. 

EdLight’s goal is to improve student outcomes and help make educators’ lives easier by creating a more effective and equitable learning environment through technology.