A Tampa-based app focused on tutoring is getting some national attention — and funding.
Knack, which already raised $1.5 million in seed funding in part from Tampa Bay Lightning owner Jeff Vinik, announced Monday that ETS (which owns and administers the GRE standardized test) and Village Capital gave a joint $125,000 to the app. The money was awarded after Knack won the 2018 VilCap U.S. Education Program.
Samry Qureshi, the co-founder and CEO of Knack, joined 11 other execs as part of VilCap's 2018 cohort, which focused on increasing accessibility and the quality of educating for higher education institutions.
"You're placed against a group of peers, who rank your business on an investment readiness scale," he said. "We would all joke it's sort of like Survivor, with the last two companies ranked by their peers receiving the highest investment."
Knack is a mobile and web app which focuses on partnerships with universities like Arizona State to tackle a multitude of issues: helping students better understand their classes, allow students in need to pay for tutoring at a lower cost, attempt to keep students enrolled in the university and help businesses find high achieving students.
"In addition to driving equity and opportunity in education, ETS is focused on bridging the gap between what employers want and what institutions are teaching," said ETS Vice President Chief Strategy Officer Scott Weaver in a press release. "We're seeking to help education providers teach and assess learners for key competencies of the future, employers recruit and develop employees, and job seekers demonstrate their skill set. With Knack, we hope to be able to inform and boost students' skills development along with positive academic and career outcomes."
Qureshi said his company is already using the funding but beyond that, is going to use the relationship with ETS to further better Knack.
"We’re focusing on developing a relationship with ETS for assessing tutor development and student learning outcomes — so how are students progressing in outcome as they continue with tutoring," he said. "In general this is a strong leader in assessment making a direct impact with their investment. We are really excited and excited to leverage our relationship with ETS and scale the business."
