Edison Ventures Invests in Knowledge Delivery Systems
New York, NY (PRWEB) March 07, 2014 -- Knowledge Delivery Systems, Inc., the fast-growing provider of online and blended professional development in K-12 education, today announced that it secured a $6 million financing round from Edison Ventures, a leading growth equity investment firm, as part of a $9.8 million financing round. The balance of the financing came from additional participation from existing investors.
As the first institutional capital for the company, this financing will accelerate Knowledge Delivery Systems’ (KDS) technology and product development, as well as expand sales and marketing. Over the past year, KDS has increased its interactive online offerings with Common Core, classroom management, and leadership courses to help educators meet the demands in districts today. In addition, to facilitate the effective and easy deployment of professional learning within districts, KDS has released the revolutionary cloud-based Professional Learning Platform—an innovative solution for districts that integrates PD content, collaboration tools and coaching.
The mission of Knowledge Delivery Systems and its growing staff is to inspire, energize and empower educators through blended professional learning. The KDS team continually strives to make an impact on education reform with content-rich, scalable solutions. The New York City-based national leader provides online and blended-model strategic professional development in order to transform PD across districts and states.
KDS’ award-winning eClassroom™ course delivery technology, embedded within the Professional Learning Platform, enables schools and districts to optimize their instructional practice with customized programs tailored to their specific goals and to engage collaboratively in virtual learning communities. KDS’ diverse library of research-based and relevant courses, given by today’s most revered industry experts, impart key strategies, tools and knowledge to enrich and improve the educational experience.
Sever Totia, Principal at Edison Ventures led the investment and commented, “We are excited to partner with such a talented team. Led by Alvin Crawford, CEO, KDS is recognized as an industry expert in strategic professional development for teachers that has an important impact on student achievement. School Districts ready for scalable, effective PD that radically improves teacher practice look to KDS’ research-based, technology-delivered PD. KDS provides a unique platform-enabled solution for customers.” Sever Totia will join KDS’ board of directors.
“Knowledge Delivery Systems is excited to work with Edison Ventures and welcomes them on the board of directors. Our stellar team is committed to providing the best professional learning solutions in the education industry, and we selected the Edison team as a partner because of their track record as one of the leading education technology investors in the country. KDS is now poised to partner with educators to dramatically improve the effectiveness of PD, resulting in increased student achievement.” stated Alvin Crawford, CEO. "As the education industry undergoes fundamental changes to improve operations and deliver better student results, this large market is adopting technology solutions, which open new opportunities. Edison understands how KDS’ solutions meet the unique demands of the education market, such as seasonality, funding sources, dispersed markets and multiple committee decision making.”
About Edison Ventures
Established in 1986 Edison partners with entrepreneurs, service providers and other financing sources to build successful companies. Edison provides capital and strategic value-add to later stage ($5 to 20 million revenue) businesses. Initial investments range from $5 to 10 million. Edison typically serves as sole or lead investor. In addition to providing expansion capital, Edison funds management buyouts, recapitalizations, spinouts and secondary stock purchases.
Edison’s investment professionals are based in Lawrenceville, NJ, New York, NY, McLean, VA, Needham, MA, and Cleveland, OH. Industry specialties include Financial Technology, Healthcare IT, Interactive Marketing and eCommerce and Enterprise 2.0. Edison’s successes include Best Software, Cambridgesoft, Dendrite, Gain Capital, Liberty Tax, M5, Magnetic, Marcam, Mathsoft, MediaBrix, Neat, NetProspex, Octagon, PlumChoice, Tangoe, Virtual Edge, Visual Networks, Vocus and many other information technology leaders, which have a combined market value exceeding $5 billion. Edison Ventures currently manages over $700 million and actively making new investments. For more information on Edison Ventures, please visit http://www.edisonventures.com and follow us on Twitter @edisonventure.
About Knowledge Delivery Systems
Knowledge Delivery Systems (KDS) creates and delivers online and blended-model strategic professional development solutions to districts, schools, and teachers. KDS’ award-winning eClassroom™ platform enables schools and districts to optimize their instructional practice with customized programs tailored to their specific goals and to engage collaboratively in virtual learning communities. KDS’ diverse library of research-based and relevant courses, given by today’s most revered industry experts, impart key strategies, tools, and knowledge to enrich and improve the educational experience. Learn more at http://www.kdsi.org and follow us on Twitter @kdsi.
Trent Anderson, Knowledge Delivery Systems, http://www.kdsi.org, +1 646-395-6458, [email protected]
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