Washington, D.C.-based Full Measure Education announced Monday that it has closed a $5.5 million Series B financing round led by Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. (NYSE:SFE) with participation from Bull City Venture Partners thanks to a Blackboard relationship that has withstood the test of time.
For those familiar with the edtech industry, the name Greg Davies will ring a bell. Now co-founder and CEO of Full Measure Education, Davies was once one of the original five hires at Blackboard in 1997, a true testament to his academic expertise. It was Davies' experience at Blackboard that led him to launch two startups.
One, Presidium, was created in response to a need for customer service in education. Davies saw firsthand how many students were reaching out for support from Blackboard as they were going through school, so he decided to develop an IT solution for students, instructors and staff. Presidium's services included a whole slew of course management systems and distance learning programs, in addition to in-house learning management platforms and technical help desk services like campus portals, messaging, email and student information systems. Which explains why when Presidium turned seven it was scooped up by Davies' former employer Blackboard in an acquisition for some $53 million in 2011.
Now four years post-acquisition, Davies is back at it. His 18-month-old stealthy startup, Full Measure Education, has officially secured a $5.5 million Series B round, once again a hopeful success in the making with a little Blackboard help. This financing round is led by Safeguard Scientifics, Inc., a public company out of Pennsylvania that churns out venture capital investments in early- and growth-stage businesses whose Senior Vice President and Managing Director of Technology Erik Rasmussen has a Blackboard tie.
While principal at Aurora Funds, Inc., a venture capital fund based in Durham, N.C., Rasmussen was responsible for several of Aurora’s most successful investments, including Blackboard. It was then, Davies said, that he met Rasmussen. Davies mentioned over the phone that he and Rasmussen go back about 17 years and when he told Rasmussen about Full Measure Education's mission, the venture capitalist wanted to be involved early on. So he made it happen, and now he'll be joining full Measure Education's board of directors.
Rasmussen's interest in Full Measure Education makes sense given the startup's aim to increase student retention, tackling the all too dismal higher education dropout rate. According to Davies, for all institutions there's just a 46 percent completion rate in six years; for community college students, the completion rate is closer to 30 percent.
"Full Measure Education was founded to address the national college dropout rate, a prevalent issue affecting students and higher education institutions alike, by looking beyond traditional communication between student and administration," said Davies. "By providing technology, communications strategies, and live student counselors to students throughout the education life-cycle, we look forward to realizing fantastic gains in student completion."
From his time at Blackboard, Davies found that only one in 10 students cite academics as the reason they drop out of college, so he created Full Measure Education to offer a communication protocol, software that bridges the gap and a "nagging mom" service to keep students on the right track. By engaging students and institutions through a combination of live services, innovative technology and customized communications strategies, Full Measure Education makes it easy to connect students to counselors and customized management solutions to make for higher rates of student completion.
The communication protocol, Davies explained, is a methodology that anticipates when problems might arise for students before they even happen. By "leveraging a vast amount of information from colleges," Davies said, Full Measure Education is able to "act proactively." Presidium, on the other hand, was a reactive solution to issues already present. Throughout a student's lifecycle, Full Measure Education determines, for each student, the optimal communication plan and method of delivery of said communication when roadblocks hit.
With its proprietary technology, Full Measure Education also provides a cloud-based solution that ensures the delivery of its student services lead to greater enrollment, retention and completion than would otherwise be expected. The need for accountability during a student's schooling is met by Full Measure Education, too, with "nagging mom" live services. Student service professionals, or counselors, call students experiencing problems that inhibit their ability to progress in school, offering a support network to help encourage students to persevere and continue to learn to the best of their ability.
Davies' newest edtech venture provides students with personal education and funding plans that can be monitored. "There are triggers along the way," Davies mentioned while talking about identifying dropout trends, "We can help them get on the right path." Full Measure Education can do so by tracking students to see how they're progressing, offering students help when they need it to keep them on the path towards academic success.
Now with seven institution contracts to provide communication services, Davies plans to use Full Measure Education's most recent round of funding to expand partnerships. This $5.5 million investment will allow his company to scale and serve to accelerate Full Measure Education’s platform development along with sales and marketing.
Declining student retention and graduation rates for higher education in the U.S. are concerning, but it's reassuring to know that Full Measure Education is seeking to solve one of the most pressing challenges facing colleges and universities today.
