Interfolio acquired Lexington, Kentucky-based edtech company DATA180 last week for an undisclosed amount. With the acquisition, Interfolio plans to integrate Data180's faculty-reporting activity into its existing faculty governance and communications platform. The acquisition deal closed for an undisclosed amount and has been in the works since the late summer.
Interfolio CEO Andrew Rosen, a co-founder of Blackboard, said all of DATA180's 20 employees have joined the Interfolio team, working remotely from within and around the Kentucky area. Right now, the new combined company has laid out a three-month, six-month and one-year plan for integrating the two technologies each company offers for clients.
Interfolio's technology created a platform that both provides strategic decision-making for colleges and universities in faculty hiring, promotion, tenure and governance decisions, as well as serves as an aggregator for higher ed job candidates and employers. DATA180 works as an aggregator for faculty research and similar documents, which are necessary for hiring, promotion and accreditation processes.
"When we realized that we were being pushed in their direction, we came to the belief that they must be getting pushed in our direction," Rosen told DC Inno in an interview.
Rosen said that 2016 was a big year for his company, focusing on enterprise revenue growth, the sales and marketing teams and management adjustments. In January 2016, Interfolio closed a $12M Series A round led by New York-based Quad Partners, with additional investments from NextGen Venture Partners, Middleland Capital and Blu Venture. When the round closed last year, Rosen told DC Inno the funds were being used in hiring and a potential new office space.
In 2017, Rosen wants to focus on the growth of faculty tech as an industry.
"We have a lot of companies in the Washington, D.C. area—we have Blackboard, we have Ellucian, we have Everfi," Rosen said, referring to are edtech companies. "However, faculty has been overlooked by most of higher education, which is really odd because if you think about it faculty drives the revenue of an institution."
"So putting Interfolio together with Data180 on the activity reporting side really is the first step in answering some of the large problems in the space around faculty technology."
Image used via CCO Public Domain — credit lil_foot_
