CPE News (8/21/2020) – Showbie has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Rhino Ventures with participation from Point Nine Capital, Azure Capital, and several other Canadian and international investors.
Founded in 2014 by Colin Bramm and Roy Pombeiro, Edmonton, Alberta based Showbie is a hybrid learning platform providing tools for educators to transform their classrooms into engaging, collaborative, and organized learning environments. The company offers a comprehensive suite of educational tools in one simple, easy-to-use app.
Showbie investors also include Kymbask Investments Inc., Yaletown Partners, Fresco Capital, and Imagine K12.
photo credit: Showbie
Blog/News Release
Rhino Ventures
August 20, 2020
Showbie, a hybrid learning platform providing tools for educators to transform their classrooms into engaging, collaborative, and organized learning environments, has raised a $5 million Series A round.
Rhino led the round with participation from Point Nine Capital, Azure Capital, and several other Canadian and international investors. Used by teachers, schools, and school districts in 135+ countries, Showbie’s platform provides an extensive suite of tools that enable teachers and students to be more productive and creative in a paperless classroom. With this new round of funding, Showbie will accelerate product features around school communication, analytics, and content–all in an effort to provide an all-in-one solution for schools to manage needs for remote and in-classroom learning.
“We are thrilled to be partnering with Rhino Ventures on our Series A financing. With this funding, we can accelerate our efforts towards offering easy to use, yet powerful, tools for teachers and entire school systems to manage the hurdles of at-home learning, as well as enhancing physical classrooms.The massive change in education due to COVID-19 and the global market reaction to use digital tools was a rallying cry for us that we had to help–with Rhino’s support, we will be able to make a positive impact on student success during this period and beyond” Colin Bramm, Showbie’s CEO & Co-Founder.
The positive impact technology can have in the education space is substantial and, with COVID-19 closing schools worldwide, the industry is heading for an overdue paradigm shift. As schools start reopening and the penetration of classroom devices continues to grow, the need for complimentary software that enables educators to seamlessly create hybrid learning environments will continue to accelerate. Solutions like Showbie, previously viewed as optional, will now be critical to creating a successful learning environment.
“The Showbie team believes that the ideal form of education is personalized, competency based, on-demand, and rooted in student outcomes; we couldn’t agree more. Showbie is the most robust hybrid learning platform that digitizes the classroom with rich communication (synchronous and asynchronous), gamified exercises, personalized feedback, and a central repository of student work. Central to every investment is our conviction that we are backing the winning team in a market that has a venture scale problem. Colin and the Showbie team are pioneers of hybrid learning environments in a time when educators and students alike need its solution. We are continuously humbled when an entrepreneur selects us as a partner to support them in realizing their full potential; Showbie is no exception.” Jay Rhind, Rhino Ventures Partner
Founded in 2012 by Colin Bramm and Roy Pombeiro, Showbie offers a comprehensive suite of educational tools in one simple, easy-to-use app. With millions of users globally, their platform has been proven to increase teacher productivity, aid in identifying struggling students, and allow administrators to follow classroom learning objectives. During COVID, Showbie granted over one million dollars worth of free software licenses to Schools and Districts to aid in the transition to remote learning. Showbie also recently added secure Video Chat within the Showbie application – making Showbie a complete, all-in-one solution for online learning, whether students are in the classroom or learning from home.