A decade ago, while working their way through medical school at the University of Arizona, Ron Robertson and Adeel Yang were looking for ways to memorize complex terminology, so they turned to a simple tool: pictures.
“When most of us were children we were taught with pictures and stories, but the higher you get in academia, we lose a lot of the artistic, creative nature of information,” Robertson said in an interview. “And yet, that's one of the most powerful ways in which the brain can retain information.”
In the following years, their idea (which was originally sparked by Niemann-Pick disease) grew into a startup called Picmonic, which was acquired by Mooresville, North Carolina-based TrueLearn last week. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Picmonic — which stands for picture mnemonic — makes study aids for people training to be doctors, nurses, paramedics and other professions that require knowledge of complex medical topics.
Robertson, who serves as the company's CEO, said that this acquisition milestone came thanks to the work of the Picmonic team.
“I think as with any startup, we are no different in the respect of it's been an incredible journey, quite the roller coaster with plenty of ups and downs,” he said. “We're really proud of what the team has accomplished. And we had a lot of great people over the years who helped us get to this point, and just couldn't be more proud of the commitment and all the hard work and dedication to get here.”
Picmonic was formed in 2011, brought to market in 2013 and in 2015 it won the People’s Choice award at the Venture Madness pitch contest. The overall winner that year was CampusLogic, who has since gone on to raise major funding.
Those in the startup ecosystem say that Phoenix has yet to put a flag in the sand in terms of its speciality, but there is an edtech flavor to the ecosystem: CampusLogic, Parchment, Schola, K16 Solutions, Prenda and other education focus-startups have grown in the Valley.
Outside funding
Picmonic has outside funding exceeding $5 million including a $1.25 million round in 2014 and a $2.3 million round in 2015.
Robertson said the company had seen “inbound interest” for a few years, but that being acquired by TrueLearn was highly complementary to the existing business model.
“We were open to the idea of a strategic partnership with an organization that was incredibly complementary to us and we found that in TrueLearn,” he said. “We discovered that there was just an immense amount of synergy between their company and ours. And the integration of our platforms will enable us to just better serve students and educators at the next level.”
Robertson said that TrueLearn, which is backed by Philadelphia-based PE firm LLR Partners, has been empowering them to continue running the business their way while the two work out the integration.
As for life post-acquisition, Robertson, his COO Ken Robertson (who happens to be his older brother) and the rest of Picmonic's 17 employees will all stay with the company. Additionally, the Picmonic brand will stick around too.
