Riipen Raises $3.75 Million to Unite College Students and Employers Via Course Projects

When Barbara Ciaramitaro joined Capella University in 2018, she and her fellow faculty members faced a dilemma—what sort of course work could the online, for-profit university assign students that would also appeal to potential employers. After months of vetting third-party programs, the university chose Riipen, a Vancouver-based startup that offers a platform where schools listed the expertise and services students could provide and where businesses shared the services they needed. The platform could pair them up for projects, and students would end the project with a presentation of their findings and work to companies in exchange for course credit.