Closing a $190 million venture round, one of the largest in D.C.'s history, is historic in and of itself. But EverFi took the historic move one step further Wednesday when the edtech company also announced that the round was led by TPG Growth's The Rise Fund as the new fund's debut investment.
The Rise Fund is probably a new name for a few, but it has notable names backing it up. Its founding partners include U2's Bono, LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman and Lynne Benioff, wife of Salesforce's founder Marc Benioff. Former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is a strategic advisor for the fund.
The fund led the round with a $120 million investment, and TPG Growth invested an additional $30 million on its own. TPG Growth is known well in Silicon Valley circles for investing in Uber and Airbnb.
The Rise Fund wouldn't say much more outside of the following statement from TPG Growth founder and managing partner and Rise Fund CEO Bill McGlashan found in the press release announcing the investment: “Education technology is a growing sector that presents a compelling opportunity to create meaningful positive outcomes. EverFi’s unique programs are creating measurable, positive results—both financially and socially. We are confident that EverFi is working to change the future of education, which makes this an exciting investment for Rise and TPG Growth.”
But in an interview with DC Inno on Wednesday, EverFi Chief Operating Officer Tammy Wincup said the investment highlighted the strength of the D.C. ecosystem, along with the growing trend of investors looking outside of traditional startup hubs for new investments.
"We’re from here. We’re committed to D.C. and what we do locally with the education market," Wincup said. "A lot of our investors are large-scale investors, which I think demonstrates that investors want to be where innovation is and innovation is D.C."
Wincup also said that not only does the investment signal enthusiasm in what Washington has to offer, but it also signals enthusiasm in the edtech space, overall.
"We should all be super excited for what that means for education," she said. "That means there are a lot of people—including Bono and others—who are really dedicated to talking the talk and making sure that education has an impact."
Investors want to be where innovation is and innovation is D.C."
Of course, the investment could bode well for D.C.'s already blossoming education technology space. The D.C. metro area is already home to publicly-traded edtech company 2U, and it's the home of the acquired D.C. stalwart Blackboard, which led to a number of tech startups from former founders and executives (such as Michael Chasen's SocialRadar). Newcomer Real Time Cases also calls the D.C. area home, and its founders were featured in Forbes' coveted 2017 30 Under 30 list.
This isn't the first time EverFi has brought in a significant raise. In July, Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Alphabet's Eric Schmidt invested in EverFi's $40 million round, and the two also invested again in the most recent round announced this week.
Moving forward, EverFi plans to stick around D.C. and it's looking for a new headquarters to support its growing staff, and it plans to use its mammoth size raise to continue to support both organic and inorganic growth—such as its acquisition of Austin-based startup Workplace Answers last week.
"We're at a significant size now, and when people come in at this size, they want to make sure that we can hit what we can," Wincup said of the size of the round. "So (the round) is very large, and one of the largest in the education space, and it's certainly one of the largest in D.C."
Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg
