D.C.’s Class Technologies Inc. has raised an eye-popping $105 million to fund an aggressive expansion — pushing it closer to unicorn status — less than a year after Blackboard Inc. co-founder Michael Chasen launched the ed-tech startup as the pandemic sparked a surge in virtual learning and demand for remote teaching tools skyrocketed.
The online education company with a Zoom-based platform announced Wednesday the Series B round, led by SoftBank Group Corp.’s Vision Fund 2. The investment brings the young company’s post-money valuation to $804 million, creeping up on the $1 billion mark that would make it a unicorn — a feat only a small number of private local companies have conquered.
The list of other investors in this round reads like a who’s who of venture capital. Locally, it includes SWaN & Legend Venture Partners and Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Fund, as well as GSV Ventures, Emergence Capital, Maven Partners, Owl Ventures, Insight Partners, Learn Capital, Reach Capital, Slow Ventures, Sound Ventures, Chimera Investment and Daher Capital. Individual investors include Super Bowl champion Tom Brady; Bill Tai, an early investor in Zoom; and entrepreneur Guy Oseary, manager of Madonna and U2.
Kristin Bannon, investment director for SoftBank Investment Advisers, will join the company’s board of directors as part of the investment.
The Class product allows teachers to proctor live tests, have one-on-one conversations, take attendance, distribute assignments and other tasks that are taken for granted during in-person learning. It’s also penetrating the corporate training arena.
Class plans to use the capital to speed up growth and break into new markets — and “rapidly deploy” the platform both domestically and internationally, Chasen, its CEO, said in a statement. That involves targeting areas “where the need for online learning and corporate training is urgent,” including underserved populations impacted by the pandemic, he said. Class currently has a presence in more than 20 countries globally, plus the U.S., according to the company.
Class currently counts nearly 200 employees, up from 50 as recently as January. And the company is shooting to grow its headcount to 300 this year, a spokesperson said in an email Wednesday. The platform has more than 250 customers and, though it declined to disclose revenue, said it has nearly quadrupled revenue quarter over quarter in 2021 so far.
This raise brings the startup’s lifetime funding to more than $160 million. That includes a fast flurry of raises including $12.25 million in April, $30 million in January and $16 million when the company hit the scene in September. At that time, the venture called itself ClassEDU, one of our Startups to Watch of 2021.
For Chasen, it’s a return to his roots; most prominently, he helped start and later sell Blackboard to a private equity firm for $1.64 billion in 2011.
But since then, he’d steered away from the ed-tech arena. He previously ran and then sold geolocation platform startup SocialRadar for $10 million, after raising $12.75 million and pivoting multiple times. Chasen also had a three-year stint as CEO of Raleigh, North Carolina, drone technology company PrecisionHawk Inc.
Class joins an elite but growing group of D.C.-area companies to raise increasingly large hauls of capital, including Arlington risk management startup Interos Inc. with $100 million, Gaithersburg biopharma Sirnaomics Inc. with $105 million, D.C. fintech startup MPower Financing with $100 million and plenty more.
To that end, Greater Washington has experienced two record-setting quarters for venture capital. As the pandemic eases up and cash is flowing more freely, more local VC firms are raising funds — and it’s rippling to the ventures themselves in larger-than-usual rounds.
