Education cloud software company PowerSchool Holdings Inc. is expanding into sub-Saharan Africa, after it grew revenue by double digits and shrank its loss in the most recent quarter.
Folsom-based PowerSchool (NYSE: PWSC) has offices in the U.S., Canada and India, and it recently announced opening an office in the Middle East to serve that region and North Africa. To serve South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, PowerSchool this week partnered with South Africa-based OneConnect to grow PowerSchool’s customer base in South Africa and southern Africa, PowerSchool CEO Hardeep Gulati told the Business Journal.
In the places where PowerSchool has "boots on the ground," its employees work on sales and partnerships. In the partnership with OneConnect, that company will work as a reseller and implementation partner for South Africa and southern Africa, Gulati said. That new partnership is expected to help PowerSchool serve an additional 500,000 students in the next year.
PowerSchool now serves 50 million students, up from 45 million students when the company had its initial public offering in 2021, Gulati said.
PowerSchool's customers are schools and school districts, as well as local and state jurisdictions.
Much of its revenue growth in the last year has come from cross-selling its suite of 19 products to existing customers.
More than 47% of customers now use at least two products. The number of customers who use four or more products has grown from 1,800 to 2,400 customers in the last year, said Eric Shander, PowerSchool chief financial officer.
Selling into the existing customer base tends to be an easier sale because they know and understand the product, Shander said. In many cases, schools don't even have to go through a formal request for proposal process to add features.
PowerSchool software is used to support school administrators with programs that eliminate manual processes for everything from daily attendance to counseling to grades. The company also provides an online platform for virtual learning, and offers support to teachers, parents and students with online lesson plans. PowerSchool offers analytics and assessment products, as well as career counseling and college search.
PowerSchool's revenue in the fourth quarter rose 10% to $161 million. The company had a loss for the quarter of $3.2, compared with a loss of $15.9 million the year-earlier period.
PowerSchool poured $107.5 million into research and development in 2022, with $27 million of that in the fourth quarter.
The company is developing personalized learning programs that augment teachers' ability to spot and then support student educational progress deficiencies, Gulati said.
Last year, PowerSchool added 800 new customers, bringing it to 15,000 customers worldwide, with the largest number in the U.S. and Canada. PowerSchool has customers in 90 countries.
The company now employs 3,200 people, and it is looking to fill 50 to 100 open positions in its Folsom offices, where it works on a hybrid model of in-office and remote work, Gulati said.
PowerSchool is moving more toward having employees in the office, which is getting good feedback from employees who note that collaborative work is better done is person. The move into the offices is also better for onboarding and mentoring new employees, some of whom are recruited from local universities, Gulati said.
Started in 1997, PowerSchool has expanded with more than 14 acquisitions in the past six years that have added products and customers to its platform. The company's initial public offering of stock in 2021 raised $766.1 million, net of underwriting costs and commissions, and was the largest IPO by a Sacramento-area company in memory.
