Clever is Joining the Kahoot! Group

Congrats to the Clever team on this BIG acquisition news!

Today, I’m excited to share that digital learning platform Clever will be joining the Kahoot! Group to expand its global footprint. This is an incredible next step and well-deserved recognition of Clever’s critical role in making #edtech more accessible in the classroom and virtually.

When I met Clever cofounders Tyler Bosmeny, Dan Carroll, and Raf Garcia back in 2012, a new wave of EdTech companies was emerging as BYOD was becoming more prevalent with teachers and districts were making important investments in tablets and Chromebooks for the classroom. This explosion of EdTech apps had the potential to be game-changing for learners and individualized learning, but only if the sheer logistics of managing apps, devices, logins, etc in the classroom weren’t themselves massively disruptive. I was exploring the opportunity for a Twilio-like service to provide an API for school data and met Tyler, Dan, and Raf as Clever was working with its first 1000 schools and about to graduate YC.

Clever was born out of Dan’s own frustration as a school tech director in Denver. That empathy and understanding of the real-world implications of bringing technology into learning environments have been core to Clever’s DNA from day one and a fundamental part of their success in working with schools.

Clever grew while fueling EdTech category growth as an integral way for schools and districts to expand the number of EdTech tools they could use with their learners. Today, Clever’s application gallery marketplace serves 600 software providers and application developers who integrate with its SSO. Meanwhile, Clever is used by 89,000 US schools and 65% of K-12 school districts, including 95 of the 100 largest school districts. That’s 20 million students and 5.6 billion learning sessions monthly in the classroom and, critically in the last year, virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic.

My huge congratulations to Tyler Bosmeny, Dan Carroll, Rafael Garcia, and the entire Clever team on this huge milestone! It’s been a true privilege to be along for the ride as you’ve made learning more engaging, teachers’ lives easier, and increased educational equity for learners through access to technology over the past nine years. I can’t wait to see what Clever accomplishes in its support of learners on a global scale.

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