Austin, Texas (PRWEB) February 03, 2015
With forward momentum, Civitas Learning closed 2014 proving strong demand for its product and services by more than tripling its partner base, adding $16 million in investor funding, and expanding its business model to include strategic services and consulting.
Some of the new institutions that joined the mix in just the last quarter include: The University of Texas at Austin, University of Washington, University of Washington-Tacoma, University of Washington-Bothell, Texas A&M University, Florida International University, St. Petersburg College, Lone Star College System, Rowan-Cabarrus Community College, Excelsior College, Liberty University, Spokane Community College, Bay Path University, Community College of Philadelphia, Kilgore College, Northeast Texas Community College, Texarkana College and Amarillo College.
“It’s compelling that our Pioneer Partners comprise diverse institutional types, at various stages in their use of technology and data. We are learning together how we can use the best of advanced analytics to make a profound difference in student learning and completion,” said Dr. Mark Milliron, Civitas Learning’s co-founder and chief learning officer. “It has become a powerful community of practice.”
Additional Funding
Supporting the work of these partners is a new set of investors who contributed $16 million to Civitas Learning. Led by Rethink Education, a venture capital firm that invests in progressive companies at the forefront of the education technology industry, the funding also included returning investors Austin Ventures and Emergence Capital. This round of funding will help support the continuing build out of the data science and engineering teams, accelerate innovations in benchmarking and app design, and expand product offerings, including the addition of strategic services designed to complement the rapidly growing use of Civitas Learning's product suite.
Services and Consulting
Civitas Learning will be bringing to its already impactful platform and apps a focus on developing and delivering strategic services for colleges and universities doing work in analytics, student success innovation, and organizational change management. To help take on this work, Civitas Learning will be welcoming Dr. Linda Baer as a Senior Fellow. Dr. Baer brings extensive experience to the company, having served previously as a Senior Program Officer with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Postsecondary Success Team, Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs with the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MNSCU), and a Board Member with the Society for College and University Planning (SCUP).
Services will include consulting for accreditation support, strategic planning, grant development and evaluation, and learning and intervention analysis. Civitas Learning will also be launching its services beta on an Analytics Maturity Assessment (AMA). Moreover, there are plans in place to launch leadership development programs, and partner with other organizations to sponsor training opportunities preparing a next generation of researchers and leaders in higher education as they take on student success and analytics innovation work.
“We’re thrilled to add these institutions, investors, and services to the fold,” said Charles Thornburgh, co-founder and CEO. “With their help, we can bring even more skill, will, and resources to our student success mission, which puts us in a great position to help our partners make a major difference in the months and years to come.”
About Civitas Learning, Inc.
By building a forward –thinking higher education community, Civitas Learning™ brings together the best of new technology, design thinking, and data science in its mission to help a million more college students a year learn well and finish strong. Using a cloud-based, predictive analytics platform and engaging applications, Civitas Learning helps partner institutions bring deep insights to decision makers, and personalized, real-time recommendations directly to the frontlines for students, faculty, and advisors to measurably improve student learning, persistence, and graduation. Civitas Learning partners include more than 750 campuses reaching more than 2.3 million students. Civitas Learning is based in Austin, Texas. For more information, visit: http://www.civitaslearning.com or email partnerships(at)civitaslearning(dot)com.
