With over 2,500 attendees expected at this year’s ASU GSV Summit in San Diego from April 18-20, we ran the company exhibitor list through the CB Insights database — thanks to our Bulk Search tool — to help you target the right companies and people.
We matched more than 240 companies in our database, and made a public list on our platform of companies you should be speaking to. We also used filtering and our Mosaic algorithm, which tracks the momentum of private companies, to identify some high-flyers attending the conference.
We ranked 13 companies below that we think you ought to look out for, even if the San Diego weather tempts attendees to wander away from the conference venue.
If you want more information on funding trends and growth prospects for these and other ASU GSV attendees, we’ve published a public company list called “ASU GSV Summit 2016” that you can check out through your account, or by signing up for a free trial.
1. Clever
Clever aims to simplify the process of signing teachers and students up for a variety of learning apps and websites. School districts and administrators use Clever to select which apps to approve for classroom use. Approved applications are set up and automatically updated, offering one-click logins for teachers and students. Free for schools, Clever earns revenue from monthly fees from its 130+ app partners.
Select Investors: Sequoia Capital, Peter Thiel, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sam Altman, Bessemer Venture Partners
Total Disclosed Funding: $43.3M
2. Edmodo
Edmodo allows teachers, administrators, students, and parents to communicate across desktop and mobile. Students and teachers can manage projects, receive notifications, and share learning material online, while parents and school administrators can monitor classroom progress. With Edmodo’s API, textbook publishers and other third-party content producers can also publish free or premium apps. Edmodo claims over 53 million users in over 190 countries.
Select Investors: Union Square Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Benchmark Capital, Greylock Partners
Total Disclosed Funding: $77.5M
3. Remind
Remind is a tool for teachers to communicate with students and their parents. The app claims that over 600,000 teachers and 10 million students and parents use the platform. Remind lets users send announcements, set calendar reminders, send files or voice clips, and start two-way chats. Remind can also convert the messages into texts or smartphone notifications so teachers and students do not have to share personal phone numbers.
Select Investors: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Social Capital, First Round Capital
Total Disclosed Funding: $59.5M
4. Knewton
Knewton’s offers “personalized” curricula to 10 million students in 21 countries. Knewton relies on users and business partners to upload the educational content, which it then matches to relevant users.
Select Investors: Accel Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, First Round Capital, FirstMark Capital, Pearson
Total Disclosed Funding: $157.3M
5. Tynker
Tynker helps kids learn programming concepts through browser-based classes that let them create apps, animate characters, fly drones, and more. Offered to schools on a freemium model, Tynker claims that over 50,000 schools are on the platform. Its code can integrate with IoT devices such as Sphero robots and Parrot drones.
Select Investors: New Enterprise Associates, Felicis Ventures, GSV Capital
Total Disclosed Funding: $3.25M
6. Pluralsight
Pluralsight focused on professional tech learning. Hosting over 4,500 classes put together by 800+ instructors – examples include C# Fundamentals and Docker for Web Developers – Pluralsight lets individuals or business teams pay a monthly fee for unlimited course viewing, access to discussion boards, and mobile and offline options.
Select Investors: Insight Venture Partners, GSV Advisors, Felicis Ventures
Total Disclosed Funding: $208.1M
7. Schoology
Schoology is a cloud-based learning-management system for students, teachers, and administrators. With features on a freemium model, Schoology helps users create and share lesson plans, send and receive notifications, participate in discussions, monitor student analytics, and collaborate throughout a school district. Schoology mainly focuses on K-12 schools and can integrate other ed tech tools for a single login.
Select Investors: FirstMark Capital, Intel Capital, Meakem Becker Venture Capital
Total Disclosed Funding: $55.3M
8. Newsela
Newsela turns news into learning by rewriting news articles from media partners to suit a range of reading levels in English and Spanish, and accompanying them with comprehension quizzes. For example, on the easiest reading level, an article about bats starts with this sentence: “How did bats get their amazing wings?”. The sentence gets progressively more complex at higher reading levels, e.g. “Chiroptera is a Greek word meaning ‘hand wing,’” and, “Chiroptera, the mammalian order to which all bats belong, is Greek for ‘hand wing.’“ Newsela tailors the rewritten articles to five levels of complexity.
Select Investors: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Mark Zuckerberg, Owl Ventures, Knight Foundation
Total Disclosed Funding: $20.8M
9. Quizlet
Founded in 2005, Quizlet offers digital study tools, and claims 40 million monthly users globally. Students can create “study sets” of flash cards and practice quizzes on any subject, while teachers can buy paid subscriptions to receive additional classroom tools. According to the company, 25% of all US high school students interact with Quizlet each day.
Select Investors: Union Square Ventures, Altos Ventures, Owl Ventures
Total Disclosed Funding: $12M
10. Echo360
Echo360’s is another classroom software company that integrates digital note-taking tools, course videos, discussion boards, polls, and quizzes. Echo360’s software-as-a-service syncs across devices. Echo360 is used by over 600 universities around the world, including Princeton, Virginia Tech, and the University of Texas at Austin, according to the company.
Select Investors: Court Square Ventures, Softbank Capital, SCP Partners
Total Disclosed Funding: $84.2M
11. EdCast
The EdCast app offers users daily “micro-learning” modules, which are ~10-minute educational videos focused on career-building skills, as well as live-streamed lectures by industry experts. Using EdCast’s Knowledge Cloud, large companies and other organizations can build their own material and broadcast it to employees, customers, etc.
Select Investors: Softbank Capital, Kapor Capital
Total Disclosed Funding: $18.9M
12. One Month
One Month provides short-duration modules that teach programming skills, such as HTML, CSS, and Ruby on Rails, and technology-focused business lessons. The video-based courses aim to teach users new skills within one month, and are available for individuals or companies.
Select Investors: Andreessen Horowitz, FundersClub, Winklevoss Capital
Total Disclosed Funding: $2.69M
13. GoNoodle
GoNoodle produces online videos and games that help teachers motivate students to exercise. Its short, interactive programs lead students through desk-side exercises, stretching, and “mindfulness” activities. Based in Nashville, Tennessee, GoNoodle claims to reach over 10 million users across 68,000 schools.
Select Investors: Children’s Medical Center
Total Disclosed Funding: $5M
Featured image credit: Flickr/Alan Cleaver