Seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady participated in a $12.2 million round for a Washington, D.C. education technology startup.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback participated in the round for Class Technologies Inc., alongside Guy Oseary, manager of Madonna and U2, and Salesforce Ventures, the investment arm of Salesforce.
"As most parents experienced firsthand, the pandemic highlighted the need for better online teaching and learning technology,” Brady said in a statement, adding he wants to help bring the Class platform to more people.
Class Technologies Inc. has now raised $58 million. The funding will go toward building out a Zoom-based platform for remote learning. In the seven months since it has launched, the startup said more than 7,500 schools, higher education institutions and corporations have reached out about using its software.
"We fast-tracked the development of Class, which is built on Zoom, because we believe people around the world can't wait for our help," Michael Chasen, co-founder and CEO of Class, said in a statement. "Tom Brady and [Salesforce CEO] Marc Benioff's backing further validates the interest leaders across different industries have [in the company]."
Brady is in good company: Chasen has been able to gather a group of well-known investors, including Santi Subotovsky, a current Zoom board member from venture firm Emergence Capital, as well as Jim Scheinman and Bill Tai, both early investors in Zoom. Class is also backed locally by SWaN & Legend Venture Partners and Revolution's Rise of the Rest Seed Fund.
Chasen may be best known for Blackboard, which he ultimately helped sell to a private equity firm for $1.64 billion in 2011.
This isn't Brady's first foray into the startup world. In 2018, he and fellow NFL icon Michael Strahan launched "Religion of Sports Media," a startup that tells sports stories through visual mediums. More recently, Brady founded TB12, a chain of wellness and recovery centers, that is now open in Tampa.
Earlier this month, Brady announced he would be launching an NFT company called Autograph. NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are pieces of digital content using blockchain technology. His company intends to have "unique digital collectibles" from athletes, pop culture icons and more.
