Posted on October 11, 2011

Education Elements Raises $2.1 Million to Expand Blended Learning Services

The NewSchools Venture Fund has announced that it helped close a $2.1 million seed round of funding for blended learning start-up Education Elements to expand its online learning and educational technology services.

The funds will enable Education Elements, which also received investments from Tugboat Ventures, venture capitalist Wally Hawley, and education investors Imagine K12, to continue building out its team, software, and services. The company's products are designed to make it easy and cost-effective for schools to implement "blended learning," an approach involving online resources and traditional classroom instruction, as a way to personalize learning and enable teachers to focus on small-group instruction.

In addition to helping schools design customized blended learning solutions and embed online content and data into daily instruction, Education Elements has developed a streamlined technology platform that eases the introduction of online learning into a school's curriculum and operations. Clients include KIPP LA Schools, Mission Dolores Academy, IDEA Public Schools, and Alliance College-Ready Public Schools.

"Blended learning uses technology to give teachers the opportunity to focus on what they do best — work closely with students in small groups and one-on-one, and to do so armed with helpful data about students' online work," said Education Elements CEO Anthony Kim. "Most importantly, blended learning can unleash students' learning velocity: struggling students get the benefit of spending more time on concepts if they need it, and other students are free to move more quickly, more deeply and go much further in their understanding than they could in a traditional classroom."