Clever (company)

Last updated
Clever
Clever logo 2023.png
Type of businessPrivate
Type of site
Educational technology
Founded2012
Headquarters San Francisco, California
Country of origin United States
Owner Kahoot!
Founder(s)
  • Tyler Bosmeny
  • Dan Carroll
  • Rafael Garcia

Clever is an American educational technology company. It was founded in 2012 by Tyler Bosmeny, Dan Carroll, and Rafael Garcia. It was acquired by Kahoot! in 2021.

History

Clever was founded in 2012 by three Harvard University graduates—Tyler Bosmeny, Dan Carroll, and Rafael Garcia—in San Francisco. It was intended as a centralized platform for school systems to transfer student data and provide services to students. [1] Carroll, a former teacher at Teach For America, had the idea for a platform that streamlined educational technology in classrooms. [2] Bosmeny was its chief executive officer, Garcia was its chief technology officer, and Carroll was its chief product officer. [3]

By 2016, the company had raised approximately $60 million in total fundraising. [4] By 2017, The Washington Post reported that the platform was used by approximately half of the public schools in the United States. By then, the company was valued at over $250 million. [2] That year, it was ranked number four in The Wall Street Journal's Tech Companies to Watch. [5]

As of 2021, Clever ran on a cash flow neutral basis. [4] The platform was being used in 65% of K-12 school districts, with approximately 20 million monthly users. In May 2021, the Oslo-based education technology company Kahoot! acquired Clever. [4] Under the agreement, Clever would remain its own independent company while integrating Kahoot! apps onto its digital platform and also expanding Clever outside of the United States to other countries where Kahoot! is used. [6]

In 2022, former Wake County middle school teacher Trish Sparks became the chief executive officer of Clever. She had worked in Clever's San Francisco Bay Area office as a vice president of customer success for a year before moving back to North Carolina to work in the company's new Durham office in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. [7]

References

  1. Singer, Natasha (September 20, 2015). "Clever, a Software Service, Gives Schools a Way to Manage Data Flow to Apps". The New York Times .
  2. 1 2 Razumovskaya, Olga (2017-06-15). "Clever Inc. Aims to Make School Logins as Easy as ABC". Wall Street Journal. ISSN   0099-9660 . Retrieved 2024-12-27.
  3. Empson, Rip (2012-06-26). "Y Combinator-Backed Clever Launches A Twilio For Educational Data". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2024-12-27.
  4. 1 2 3 Lunden, Ingrid (2021-05-06). "Kahoot acquires Clever, the US-based edtech portal, for up to $500M". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2024-12-27.
  5. "Top 25 Tech Companies to Watch". WSJ. June 14, 2017. Retrieved 2024-12-27.
  6. Bradley, Brian (2021-05-11). "K-12 Dealmaking: Kahoot Acquires Clever, in Deal Combining Game-Based Platform and Single-Sign-On Provider". Marketbrief. Retrieved 2024-12-27.
  7. Dolder, Lars (May 6, 2022). "Former Wake County teacher takes over as CEO of major educational software company". The News & Observer.