Instructure

Last updated
Instructure, Inc.
Company type Private
NYSE: INST
IndustryEducational Technology
Learning Management Systems
Assessment Management Systems
Assessment
Founded2008;17 years ago (2008)
FounderBrian Whitmer and Devlin Daley
Headquarters
Salt Lake City, Utah
,
United States
Number of locations
7
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
  • Steve Daly
  • (CEO)
ProductsCanvas, Catalog, Studio, Portfolium, MasteryConnect, Videri, CASE Benchmarks and Item Bank, Navigate Item Bank, Academic Benchmarks, Certify, DataConnect, Program Assessment, Pathways, Canvas for Corporate Education
Revenue$475.2 million (2022) [1]
Number of employees
1,466 (2022) [2]
Website instructure.com
Canvas
Developer(s) Instructure
Written in Ruby on Rails
License Core AGPLv3, Some official plugins proprietary [3]
Website https://www.instructure.com/canvas

Instructure Holdings, Inc. is an educational technology company based in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. It is the developer and publisher of Canvas, a web-based learning management system (LMS).

Contents

History

The company was founded in 2008 by two BYU graduate students, Brian Whitmer and Devlin Daley. [4] Its initial funding came from Mozy founder Josh Coates, who served as Instructure's CEO from 2010 to 2018 and chairman of the board through 2020. [5]

In December 2010, the Utah Education Network (UEN), a representative of a number of Utah colleges and universities, announced that Instructure would be replacing Blackboard. [6] By 2013, the company's customer base had increased to 9 million users. [7]

In 2011, Instructure launched Canvas, a learning management system. [8] The company announced that Canvas would be made freely available under an Affero General Public License (AGPL) license as open-source software. [9] [10] [11] As of 2025, the core of Canvas was AGPL-licensed and installable, but several commonly-used Infrastructure-plugins were proprietary, making Canvas open-core. [12] Canvas became available on iOS in 2011, and on Android in 2013. [13] As of 2020, Canvas was used in approximately 4,000 institutions worldwide. [14]

In 2015, Instructure launched Bridge, a cloud-based corporate learning management system. [15] It was acquired by Learning Technologies Group (LTG) in 2021. [16]

As of 2015, the company had raised $90 million in funding from investors. [17] On November 13, 2015, the firm began trading as a publicly held company on the New York Stock Exchange. [18]

In 2020, Thoma Bravo acquired the company for $2 billion. [19] In June 2021, Instructure again filed for an IPO, [20] and began trading under the symbol INST. [21]

In 2024, it was announced that KKR and Dragoneer had completed their purchase of the company for $4.8 billion. [22]

In 2024, Instructure announced the acquisition of Parchment, a credential management platform. [23]

On July 23, 2025, OpenAI and Instructure announced a global partnership to bring AI tools inside the Canvas LMS. [24]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Instructure Company Profile". Craft. Retrieved September 8, 2023.
  2. ↑ "Instructure 2022 Annual Report" (PDF). Retrieved March 6, 2024.
  3. ↑ instructure. "FAQ". GitHub. Retrieved 2025-09-14.
  4. ↑ Kim, Joshua. "An Instructure Canvas LMS Timeline". www.insidehighered.com. Retrieved 2025-03-17.
  5. ↑ Neely, Karissa. "Instructure CEO change, Survey shows affordable housing concern, Powerful U Experience event". The Daily Herald. Archived from the original on 31 October 2018. Retrieved 25 January 2019.
  6. ↑ "New Statewide Learning Management System Selected". UEN News. Utah Education Network. December 14, 2010. Retrieved June 14, 2017.
  7. ↑ Empson, Rip (November 2012). "With 4.5M Users, Instructure Takes On The Courseras & Udacities Of The World With Its Own Open Course Network". TechCrunch.
  8. ↑ Tate, Emily (2018-07-16). "How Canvas came to unseat Blackboard as the leading LMS". EdScoop. Retrieved 2025-03-17.
  9. ↑ Michael Arrington (January 31, 2011). "Instructure Launches To Root Blackboard Out Of Universities". TechCrunch.com. Interserve dba TechCrunch. Retrieved February 22, 2011.
  10. ↑ Josh Keller (January 31, 2011). "Upstart Course-Management Provider Goes Open Source". Wired Campus. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved February 22, 2011.
  11. ↑ Christopher Dawson (February 1, 2011). "There are alternatives to Blackboard and Moodle: Instructure Canvas goes open source". ZDNet Education. CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on February 4, 2011. Retrieved February 22, 2011.
  12. ↑ instructure. "FAQ". GitHub. Retrieved 2025-09-14.
  13. ↑ "Instructure Releases Canvas for Android". canvaslms. Archived from the original on 8 February 2018. Retrieved 7 February 2018.
  14. ↑ "Why Colleges and Universities Are Adopting Canvas". eLearningInside News. 2018-10-24. Retrieved 2020-09-02.
  15. ↑ Buhr, Sarah (2015-02-18). "On The Way To An IPO, Education Technology Startup Instructure Is Close To Raising A Big New Round". TechCrunch.
  16. ↑ "Behind the Deal: Why LTG acquired Bridge". Learning Technologies Group plc. 2021-06-28. Retrieved 2022-08-20.
  17. ↑ Locke, Charley (2015-02-24). "Instructure Plots Path to IPO, Corporate Customers After $40M Series E". Edsurge.
  18. ↑ Schaffler, Rhonda (2015-11-13). "Instructure IPO Debuts on NYSE With Double-Digit Gain". TheStreet.
  19. ↑ "Instructure files for U.S. IPO after 2020 take-private deal with Thoma Bravo". Reuters. Archived from the original on 2023-04-24. Retrieved 2025-03-17.
  20. ↑ Bamforth, Emily (28 June 2021). "Instructure, creator of Canvas, files for initial public offering". edscoop.com. Scoop News Group. Retrieved 14 July 2021.
  21. ↑ Saleh Rauf, David (4 July 2021). "Another Education Company Goes Public: Instructure IPO Gives Ed-Tech Firm $2.9 Billion Valuation". marketbrief.edweek.org. Retrieved 24 January 2023.
  22. ↑ "KKR and Dragoneer complete $4.8bn take-private acquisition of edtech firm Instructure". PE Hub. 14 November 2024. Retrieved 2024-11-21.
  23. ↑ "KKR to take edu-tech firm Instructure private for $4.8 billion". Reuters. July 25, 2024.
  24. ↑ Ravaglia, Ray. "Instructure And OpenAI Harness The Power Of AI To Transform Learning". Forbes. Retrieved 2025-07-25.
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