Chicago ed tech startup ThinkCERCA raised a new round of funding from some notable investors to grow its student literacy platform.
ThinkCERCA announced Wednesday that it has raised $10.1 million in a Series B round of funding. The round was led by Scott Cook and Signe Ostby, founders of the Valhalla Charitable Foundation (Cook is also the founder of tax preparation software Intuit).
Other investors in the round include LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner and SVP Mike Gamson, OpenTable Founder Chuck Templeton, GSV Acceleration Founder Deborah Quazzo, former Match CEO and current ShopRunner CEO Sam Yagan, TAL Education Group, Follett Knowledge Fund and Plum Alley Investments.
ThinkCERCA creates a personalized literacy platform that helps educators teach critical thinking skills to students. The platform walks students through the process of developing an evidence-based argument to a debate question, with the goal of helping students in grades 3 through 12 become better communicators.
Teachers are using ThinkCERCA's technology in all 50 states and in 130 countries, and it's being used across major school systems such as Chicago Public Schools and the New York Department of Education.
"Everyone deserves the right to learn, think critically, and express their point of view effectively," ThinkCERCA CEO and Founder Eileen Murphy said in a statement. "This funding will allow ThinkCERCA to more effectively promote critical thinking at scale in school districts across the country and across the globe."
ThinkCERCA has now raised around $15 million since launching in 2012. In 2013, the company was the recipient of a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Literacy Courseware Challenge grant.
