Startups

This edtech company moved to Philly and raised $1.5 million

KickUp, a product of out-of-state accelerators, moved to Philly in March 2016.

KickUp's platform is used by 50+ school districts. (Screenshot)

Edtech startup KickUp announced a $1.54 million seed round Friday.
The raise was led by Palo Alto-based Reach Capital, with investments from Ben Franklin Technology PartnersRittenhouse VenturesD.C.-based Jefferson Education FundArcady Bay PartnersDeborah Quazzo and other angel investors.
In 2014, CEO Jeremy Rogoff — a 28-year-old former high school teacher and Lower Merion native — and cofounder Victoria Kinzig (28, also from Lower Merion) entered the Virginia pre-accelerator program Lighthouse Lab to develop the first prototype of what they wanted to create. The product was launched and had a series of clients, but ran into some difficulty in getting teachers to interact in a peer-to peer collaboration system.
The following year, they went out to California, where they gained access to Imagine K-12, an accelerator that specializes in edtech startups. There, the founders repurposed the product to help school districts, with better results that allowed them to grow their client base.
For both strategic and emotional reasons, in March 2016 the cofounders decided to move the company to Philadelphia.
“We love Philly, we really like the idea of being in a growing tech scene,” Rogoff said. “Philly also allows us to access more educational institutions in a meaningful way, because we have more educational institutions nearby. It makes strategic sense.”
The KickUp platform uses data to help school districts and educational organizations manage professional learning programs and breakdown their impact from an organizational and individual level.
Rogoff said the investment will let the company improve its services. The company serves 52 school districts in California, Alaska, Missouri, New York, Colorado, Connecticut, Kentucky and Iowa, according to Rogoff.
“We’re focused on meeting teachers, coaches and districts where they are,” he said.
Resources from the round will also let the six-employee company grow its team, hiring eight full-timers to handle engineering, sales and district success.

Companies: Rittenhouse Ventures / Ben Franklin Technology Partners

Before you go...

Please consider supporting Technical.ly to keep our independent journalism strong. Unlike most business-focused media outlets, we don’t have a paywall. Instead, we count on your personal and organizational support.

3 ways to support our work:
  • Contribute to the Journalism Fund. Charitable giving ensures our information remains free and accessible for residents to discover workforce programs and entrepreneurship pathways. This includes philanthropic grants and individual tax-deductible donations from readers like you.
  • Use our Preferred Partners. Our directory of vetted providers offers high-quality recommendations for services our readers need, and each referral supports our journalism.
  • Use our services. If you need entrepreneurs and tech leaders to buy your services, are seeking technologists to hire or want more professionals to know about your ecosystem, Technical.ly has the biggest and most engaged audience in the mid-Atlantic. We help companies tell their stories and answer big questions to meet and serve our community.
The journalism fund Preferred partners Our services
Engagement

Join our growing Slack community

Join 5,000 tech professionals and entrepreneurs in our community Slack today!

Trending

The man charged in the UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting had a ton of tech connections

From rejection to innovation: How I built a tool to beat AI hiring algorithms at their own game

How a laid-off AI enthusiast pivoted to become a founder — while holding down a day job

Where are the country’s most vibrant tech and startup communities?

Technically Media