This newsletter covers the business side of the education industry - venture funding, M&A, other financial transactions. Whiteboard Advisors also publishes a daily newsletter - What We’re Reading - of curated, industry-focused news clips and a weekly newsletter - Whiteboard Notes - which covers policy, industry trends, and insights from W/A CEO Ben Wallerstein.

Hello!

Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3. The week after, on Nov. 12, Whiteboard is hosting its Post-Election Policy Summit (“AI Nation At Risk”) at Gallup’s headquarters in Washington, DC: a full day on what the results mean for education funding, the federal scholarship tax credit, AI in schools, and higher ed accountability, with conversations featuring Assistant Secretary and CFO Casey Sacks and Under Secretary Nicholas Kent. Attendance is by invitation; you can request one here.

Lots to cover in this edition, here it is by the numbers:

With that, on to the news!

Whiteboard Advisors not only provides policy and market-related diligence and advisory services, we track every financial transaction that happens in education — and keep a record of all deals that are publicly announced. You can check out our Deals Database here:

The following transactions caught our eye over the past few weeks. If you have a deal to announce in this newsletter, please reach out.

Abby Care raises $82M / United States, Family Caregiver Services / Transformation Capital (lead), CVS Health Ventures, Frist Cressey Ventures, Pivotal Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Thrive Capital, Sequoia Capital

Abby Care trains family members to become certified, paid caregivers to relatives who qualify (the company bills through Medicaid), with registered nurse care managers providing clinical oversight. The funding from this round will support continued expansion as more insurers invest in home-based care programs.

byteXL raises $9M / India, Higher Education Skills Training / Elevar Equity (lead), Kalaari Capital, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation

byteXL partners with engineering colleges to build industry-oriented technology training into degree programs, supplying curriculum, projects, software and trained instructors. The company says it works with 40 institutions and ~200,000 students, and placed 7,600 graduates in IT and engineering jobs last year. The round will fund continued expansion, with the company aiming to reach 120 institutions and 500,000 students in the next two years.

Rosie raises $7M / United States, In-Home Childcare Services / Bling Capital and Reach Capital (co-leads), Precursor Ventures, Mother Ventures, Marketplace Capital, Graham & Walker

Rosie aggregates vetted caregivers and family assistants onto a platform that bundles management of household help for families – offering services like babysitting, dishwashing, laundry and meal prep. The company says it reached seven-figure ARR within eight months of launch and serves ~300 families in the Seattle area, with plans to expand to Austin and San Francisco in 2027.

Kollegio raises $5.3M / United States, College Admissions Software / Reach Capital, JFFVentures, ECMC Group, Workshop Venture Partners, Alumni Ventures, Dent Capital, AiSprouts VC

Kollegio gives students free help with college applications, including school matching, essay feedback and step-by-step guidance through each of their college applications. The company reports 300,000+ student users and 30+ college partners and plans to use this funding round to broaden into education and career planning more generally.

Straia raises $3.1M / United States, HED Student Success Software / a16z Speedrun (lead), JFF Ventures, Reach Capital, ECMC Group, Golden Gate Ventures, Founders Future, Logos, Catalysis Capital Management

Straia helps university administrators better organize and analyze data from disparate technology systems, with an emphasis on supporting enrollment and retention programs. The funding from this round will be used for product development and to further expand go-to-market efforts.

Bloomy raises $3M / United States, AI Tutor / Reach Capital, Rethink Capital Partners, Silicon Schools Fund, Workshop Venture Partners, Y Combinator, Robinhood, Transpose Platform

Bloomy offers schools and families a skills-based curriculum and tutor that supports a mastery-based progression, providing worked examples, guided practice with a tutor that asks questions rather than giving answers, and assessment all in one platform. The funding from this round will be used to support new hires – including an exciting CTO role – across product development and go-to-market.

sAInaptic raises $1.3M / United Kingdom, Vocational Assessment Software / Cornerstone VC and Ufi Ventures (co-leads), Elm Venture Partners, Brighteye Ventures

sAInaptic grades written assignments, reports and portfolio work for vocational and apprenticeship qualifications, selling to awarding bodies, whose human assessors keep responsibility for final grades. The company claims this helps reduce grading time from 45 minutes to eight seconds for some qualifications.

IXL Learning acquires NoRedInk / United States, K12 Writing Instruction

NoRedInk offers writing practice for grades K-12, from sentence-level exercises to multi-paragraph essays, with diagnostics and growth reports for teachers. It will stay a standalone brand inside IXL’s rapidly expanding portfolio, which now includes 16 brands from across the education ecosystem. This is also the second major writing-instruction acquisition of October, following Carnegie Learning’s acquisition of Ethiqly.

Activate Learning acquires Open Up Resources / United States, K12 Core Curriculum

Open Up Resources, a nonprofit founded in 2015, distributes openly licensed K-12 math and EL Education ELA curricula. Activate, a PE-backed publisher of science curricula, including OpenSciEd, says the combined organization will operate as a public benefit corporation.

RM sells TTS for up to ~$71M / United Kingdom / Sweden, Classroom Resources

RM is selling TTS, its Nottingham-based classroom resources business (best known for the Bee-Bot floor robot), to Sweden’s Eduviva Group. TTS had ~$89M of revenue in FY25. RM will use much of the net proceeds to pay down debt and narrow its focus to digital assessment, where revenue grew ~20% last year.

EdSights acquires Edvise / United States, HED Student Success Software

EdSights, which texts college students to surface problems like financial strain and flags at-risk students to advisers at 300+ institutions, is buying Edvise, a startup founded by recent graduates that built course planning, retention and CRM products. EdSights, which raised $80M from JMI Equity last year, framed the deal as a way to add product and engineering talent.

Outsmart acquires Bridges Graduate School / United States, Degree Provider

Outsmart, the company led by former Duolingo executives Jorge Mazal and Gina Gotthilf (which raised $25M last year), bought the Bridges Graduate School of Cognitive Diversity in Education last December and has now renamed it Elmbridge University. Through Elmbridge, Outsmart has now been approved to launch a low-cost online STEM certificate, and further undergraduate and graduate programs are planned.

Acorns acquires Frich / United States, Financial Education

Frich is a community of 1.6M young adults who learn about money through group chats, comment threads and creator videos; its co-founders will join Acorns to lead education and community. Like Acorns’ purchase of EarlyBird last year, the deal treats financial education as a way to reach customers before they start investing.

Aurora Capital Partners acquires Softdocs / United States, Education Workflow Software

Softdocs sells document management, e-forms and workflow software to 1,000+ colleges, K12 districts and government agencies. Aurora, a ~$6B Los Angeles firm, says that its investment will accelerate product development and further expand the company’s reach.

bd-capital invests in Electude / Netherlands, Technical Education Software

Electude sells simulation-based training for automotive and other technical trades to 4,000+ schools in 70+ countries. bd-capital is a European buyout firm with €800M+ in assets under management. The deal is consistent with the upward trend in demand for skilled technicians.

LearnUpon secures $50M in debt financing / Ireland, Corporate Learning Software / Claret Capital Partners

Dublin-based LearnUpon sells a learning management system for employee, customer and partner training, including customers like Waymo and World Rugby. This non-dilutive debt will fund product development, international expansion and acquisitions, following LearnUpon’s purchase of Courseau last year. The company’s only prior institutional round was $56M from Summit Partners in 2020.

A conversation with Brian Co, who became CEO of Outschool in September, on family-directed learning, why ESA-funded families are one of Outschool’s fastest-growing segments, and what the federal scholarship tax credit could mean for families who want to assemble their own mix of tutoring, enrichment and classes.

Looking for your next opportunity in education? Check out our W/A Jobs, which features 3,734 career opportunities from 326 organizations across the education industry. Hiring? For $250/month or $1,000/year, organizations can post an unlimited number of jobs with no per-job fees. A few roles that we’re excited about from the past week:

Whiteboard Advisors is the leading policy-related diligence partner for education investors, advising on most major private equity transactions in education over the past 15 years. Our specialty is translating complex policy dynamics into insights that inform decision-making. Reply to this email to learn more.