TALENT DEVELOPMENT
Businesswire | June 02, 2023
Swing Education, an online marketplace that connects schools and substitute teachers, announced today $38 million in Series C funding. The funding round was led by funds advised by Apax Partners LLP (“Apax”), a leading global private equity advisory firm, and by edtech investment firm Reach Capital. The funding enables Swing Education to invest in its growth and better address the nation-wide substitute teacher shortage.
This financing follows a 2018 Series B funding co-led by GV (formerly Google Ventures) and Owl Ventures and a seed round from a consortium that included Social Capital, Kapor Capital, Moment Ventures, Ulu Ventures, Red House Education, and Edovate Capital.
Swing believes that every classroom deserves a teacher, and every student deserves to learn without disruption. Since its founding in 2015, Swing has worked to improve the experience of being a substitute teacher and made it easier for K-12 schools to grow and manage their substitute teacher pools. Swing currently works with over 2,800 school partners and in the 2022-23 school year has supported these schools in filling over one million instructional hours with substitute teachers.
Teacher vacancies are an ever-present challenge for school administrators, with 45% of public schools operating without a full teaching staff at the start of the 2022-2023 school year. While school leaders recognize the need for substitute teachers, improving processes around substitute teaching and investing in programs and tools that support substitute well-being often go unprioritized. Swing aims to fill this gap. By combining dedicated success teams and a comprehensive technology platform, Swing works to ensure that substitutes are treated better, which, in turn, attracts more individuals to the profession.
“We’re thrilled to have Apax Partners and Reach Capital as strategic investors,” said Mike Teng, CEO of Swing Education. “The need for substitute teachers is acute. This additional funding highlights the current strain on our schools and positions Swing to grow our impact, placing even more substitute teachers in even more classrooms.”
“Swing Education is a truly impactful business, bringing much needed digitalization to the substitute teacher staffing marketplace and making it easier and more efficient to match talent with schools,” said David Su, Partner, Apax Global Impact. “We’re incredibly excited to be partnering with Mike and the broader team to help grow the business and execute on our joint vision for the company.”
“Beyond broadening and diversifying staffing pools, Swing’s distinct marketplace model provides upskilling opportunities and unlocks innovative pathways to the teaching profession,” said Steve Kupfer, Venture Partner at Reach Capital. “Each of these goals aligns with our mission as education investors. We are thrilled to support the Swing team through this next stage of growth.”
"Even prior to the pandemic's amplification, the teacher shortage in the United States profoundly impacted the K-12 education system. Under the visionary leadership of Mike and Asha, Swing Education has built a transformative way for K-12 schools and substitute teachers to connect,” said Amit A. Patel, Managing Director at Owl Ventures. “Their technology platform has harnessed the power of data to enable a seamless match between teacher absences and qualified substitutes as well as ensure uninterrupted student learning."
Swing currently operates in California, Arizona, Texas, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C. and will use this latest funding round to grow its substitutes and school partners in these regions. Swing will look to expand to new regions in 2024.
About Swing Education
Swing Education is an online staffing marketplace that connects substitute teachers with schools. Founded in 2015 by former K-12 educators and administrators, Swing makes it easier for schools and districts to find reliable, qualified substitute teachers when they need them most. With over 300,000 absence days filled to date, Swing is dedicated to improving the experience of finding substitute teachers, becoming a sub, and keeping student learning on track. Swing serves over 2,800 partner schools across California, Arizona, Illinois, Texas, New Jersey, New York, and Washington D.C.
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TALENT DEVELOPMENT
PRnewswire | April 11, 2023
Echo360, the most comprehensive, global, SaaS-based EdTech platform for creating, delivering, and measuring learning engagement outcomes in any learning environment, builds on its DNA of EdTech innovation today by launching EchoPoll™, a revolutionary new learning engagement platform for education and business, and continuing to deliver significant enhancements to its EchoVideo™ and ExamView™ platforms.
With EchoPollTM the company builds on over 20 years of pioneering audience response systems for education and business by delivering a SaaS-based polling solution with unparalleled flexibility, connectivity, and dependability. The company collaborated closely with educators around the world to ensure EchoPoll™ exceeds their needs to create greater engagement and outcomes from learners in any environment, including:
• The flexibility for educators to use EchoPoll™ in "live" sessions with rostered and guest users, or to assign interactive work to individuals and teams outside the classroom or office.
• The ability to transform existing Power Point presentations, files, or websites into interactive Echo360 Poll Decks™ or EchoPoll™ sessions with its Companion App • Seamless connectivity with all major LMS providers such as Canvas, D2L, Moodle, Anthology (Blackboard), and popular education and business applications like Zoom and GoTo Meeting.
• Instructor and administrator dashboards with metrics that assess engagement at the course, team, and individual learner level.
• Scalability and reliability, including 99.999% uptime and 24/7 customer support
"EchoPoll™ is polling, perfected -- the culmination and next-generation technology innovation representing everything we've developed and advanced in educational polling since 2002," said Murad Velani, Echo360 President and CEO. "Thousands of instructors around the world already trust Echo360 to support their inspired learning goals, and EchoPoll™ will introduce the power of SaaS-based educational polling to thousands more."
In addition to launching EchoPoll™, Echo360 also announced new enhancements and future redesigns for two of its most popular products, EchoVideo™ and ExamView™. EchoVideo™, the company's SaaS video management platform, is rolling out new features increasing interoperability, accessibility, and student engagement; ExamView™, the popular exam creation and assessment SaaS platform utilized by some of the world's largest education and trade publishers, will be redesigned and relaunched later this year as EchoExam™ with advanced compatibility, reporting, and mobile app features.
"These innovative and interoperable EdTech SaaS platforms help our customers consolidate disparate vendor offerings by using a comprehensive portfolio of solutions from Echo360 that address their challenges of dealing with increasing costs, support, and scalability," concluded Velani.
To celebrate the launch of EchoPoll™, Echo360 will be hosting a "Worldwide Week of Polling" virtual event April 10 – 14th. Each day the company will post a new EchoPoll™ link on its LinkedIn and Twitter feeds, inviting followers around the globe to answer an interactive question of the day, with results posted at the end of each day.
News of Echo360's continuing innovations to help instructors and learners around the world transform their learning experiences through technology comes on the heels of the company earning top position in The Silicon Review's "5 Best E-Learning Providers to Watch in 2023". In recognizing Echo360, the Review cited the company's "dynamic SaaS platform of innovative solutions that correspond to the relationship, environment, content, and assessment required." Earlier this year Echo360 received similar recognition from Enterprise Viewpoint in their listing of "2023's top E-Learning Providers".
About Echo360
Echo360 is the leading SaaS interactive video learning management, content, engagement, and assessment platform serving over 2 million learners and instructors at more than 1200 higher education institutions in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific. Built for the cloud and grounded in principles of learning equity, evidence, and engagement, instructors and learners around the world can use the platform from wherever they are, on any device, to create, record and consume content, give and receive feedback, and gain real-time insights along their inspired learning journey.
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ONLINE EDUCATION
PRnewswire | May 19, 2023
Ellucian, the leading higher education technology solutions provider, today announced a partnership with SenecaLab, a Panamanian company that has been selected by Forbes as one of the 30 promising businesses in Central America, to successfully resell Ellucian solutions in Panama and in other parts of Latin America. This partnership will broaden Ellucian's reach in Latin America, introducing best-in-class products and services, with the help of SenecaLab's deep expertise in the region.
In collaboration with SenecaLab, Ellucian will help colleges and universities meet and exceed their strategic goals and drive student success across Panama.
Ellucian solutions allow higher education institutions to focus on learning the needs of students by simplifying complex registration, enrollment and administrative processes. For faculty and staff, Ellucian enables greater visibility and transparency supporting data-driven decision making across institutions.
"Ellucian is the leading provider of technology to higher education institutions in North America, and together with SenecaLab's unique knowledge of Panama's education system and expertise with both local and regional regulations, we will help scale digital transformation for higher education in Panama," said Jeff Dinski, Chief Strategy and Corporate Developement Officer, Ellucian. "Standardizing and unifying data will make it easier for institutions across the country to plan and share information to ensure greater student experiences and access to education."
"Digital transformation is a priority for higher education institutions, and SenecaLab is pleased with this alliance. It will allow us to accompany higher education institutions, because we understand their challenges, and contribute in areas such as change management, leadership, and processes that end up being decisive in the success of institutional modernization. Together, with the most flexible, secure and proven Ellucian technology, as well as best practices from the best universities in the world, we will lead them to effectively develop their full potential," said Adriana Angarita, CEO and Founder, SenecaLab.
About Ellucian
Ellucian powers innovation for higher education, partnering with more than 2,900 customers across 50 countries, serving 22 million students. Fueled by decades of experience with a singular focus on the unique needs of learning institutions, the Ellucian platform features best-in-class SaaS capabilities and delivers insights needed now and into the future. These solutions and services span the entire student lifecycle, including data-rich tools for student recruitment, enrollment, and retention to workforce analytics, fundraising, and alumni engagement. Ellucian's innovative solutions, vast ecosystem of partners and user community of more than 45,000 provides best practices leading to greater institutional success and achieving better student outcomes.
About SenecaLab
Panamanian company that develops educational projects based on technology for competitiveness and measurement of educational quality in Latin America. We design solutions to empower human beings and connect them with society. Integrated by professionals with extensive experience in higher education, we accompany institutions through their processes aimed at their success.
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