Follett
Follett has been a trusted partner to Pre-K and K-12 schools, districts, and college campuses for more than 140 years, taking care of the critical details that make it easier for schools to run, teachers to teach and students to learn.
Every day, they serve over half of the students in the United States, and work with 80,000 schools as a leading provider of education technology, services and print and digital content. They're higher education's largest campus retailer and a hub for school spirit and community as they operate nearly 1,200 local campus stores and over 1,600 virtual stores across the continent.
Their vantage point and presence in the market – from early childhood all the way through higher education – gives them a unique perspective to know what teachers are teaching and how students are learning; to know what professors are adopting; to know what college students are buying, and to know how they are acquiring content and interacting with new technologies and retail environments available to them.
They're more than just a book company, they're a gateway to knowledge—harnessing their insights to help improve student outcomes and shape the future of education as they know it.
Past deals in Nebraska
Fishtree
Acquisition in 2018
Fishtree is an education technology company that provides teachers with the digital tools to deliver engaging, personalized lessons in a collaborative learning environment. Fishtree offers quick and easy access to the best resources including real-time media and publisher content, and allows teachers to monitor and track student progress easily through powerful analytics. Our global movement has resulted in partnerships around the world, dedicated to empowering educators in every possible way.
ClassBook
Acquisition in 2016
ClassBook.com is the market leader in creation of customized online bookstore solutions.
ShowEvidence
Venture Round in 2014
ShowEvidence, Inc. provides a hosted software for performance assessment. It offers ShowEvidence that enables the users to demonstrate their mastery of core competencies and get feedback on their performance based on evidence at work or in school. The company's ShowEvidence brings together all the applications needed to implement a performance assessment process that produces measurable results. It solution is used in various applications, such as student learning, certification, professional development, and observation. ShowEvidence, Inc. was founded in 2011 and is based in Santa Clara, California.
Vocabulary
Funding Round in 2015
Vocabulary.com is the easiest, most intelligent way to improve your vocabulary. It combines an adaptive learning system (The Challenge) with the world’s fastest dictionary (The Dictionary) so that you can more quickly and more efficiently learn words.
ThinkCERCA
Series A in 2015
ThinkCERCA’s personalized literacy platform helps educators teach critical thinking skills through argumentative writing. With students and teachers using its platform in all 50 states and 130 countries, the company has partnered with prominent leaders in education, including Follett Corporation, and has been featured by The Atlantic and EdSurge. A 2016 SIAA CODiE Awards finalist in the Best Learning Capacity-Building Solution and Best Reading/English/Language Arts Instructional Solution categories, ThinkCERCA has also been named one of the best tools in ed tech by Common Sense’s Graphite. In July 2013, ThinkCERCA was the recipient of a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Literacy Courseware Challenge grant, and in December 2012, graduated from the inaugural class of Impact Engine’s social impact accelerator. To learn more, please visit ThinkCERCA.com
Lumen Learning, LLC
Series A in 2017
Lumen helps educational institutions reduce textbook costs and improve student success using open educational resources and learning analytics. It creates affordable digital course materials using open educational resources (OER). Every Lumen OER course is designed to improve learning and replace expensive textbooks in high-enrollment college courses. Adding timely updates, learning design, and technical support to OER, Lumen makes the transition to open content simple, reliable, and effective for instructors and students.
It was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in Portland, Oregon.
ClassOwl Inc.
Seed Round in 2014
ClassOwl helps teachers make sure students know exactly what they need to do in school. In a simple, easy-to-use app, instructors can organize class deadlines and send homework reminders directly to students on their personal devices. Students and teachers share a dynamic digital planner that displays assignment completion time, enables real-time assignment Q&A, and can be used as a checklist to help students manage their time. With ClassOwl, everyone in the class becomes more organized. Teachers have the tools to effectively help and communicate with students outside of class, and students see overall improvements in academic performance because they always know what exactly what they have to do to be successful. Acquired by Branch Metrics in 2015.
Interactive Constructs
Acquisition in 2006
Interactive Constructs provides custom e-learning and web publishing solutions for publishers and companies. With combined backgrounds of 20 years in the software publishing and educational technology fields, Interactive Constructs has developed a range of e-learning solutions for both the K-12 and Higher Education markets. Solutions range from web authoring/content management, and assessment to complete learning management systems. The value of an Interactive Constructs solution is cost, time to market, and quality.
Baker & Taylor
Acquisition in 2016
Baker & Taylor Corporation distributes books, digital content, and entertainment products to publishers, libraries, schools, and retailers worldwide. It also offers Axis 360, a digital media library system for circulating digital content; Blio, an ereading solution; collectionHQ, a collection performance improvement solution revolutionizing the way libraries select, manage, and promote their collections by providing a hosted Web application accessible through Web browser; and TS 360, a collection development, selection, and acquisition tool that supports workflows. Baker & Taylor Corporation was formerly known as Baker & Taylor Holdings, Inc. and changed its name to Baker & Taylor Corporation in 1999. The company was founded in 1828 and is based in Charlotte, North Carolina with additional offices in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Lewisville, Texas. It also has service centers in Bridgewater, New Jersey; Commerce, Georgia; Momence, Illinois; and Reno, Nevada, as well as subsidiary locations in Brookvale, Australia; Oxfordshire, United Kingdom; and de Mexico, Mexico. As of April 18, 2016, Baker & Taylor Corporation operates as a subsidiary of Follett Corporation.
Valore
Acquisition in 2016
Valore offers innovative solutions that eliminate the inefficiencies throughout the textbook industry, and bring more affordable textbooks and higher quality courseware to students, bookstores, professors, and schools.
Campus Quad
Seed Round in 2013
Campus Quad, Inc. provides Campus Quad, a cloud based mobile communication platform that connects app-driven mobile student in real time to the people, places, and programs that enrich the college experience and drive extra-curricular engagement. Its Campus Quad displays photos, events, coupons, and classified ads; manages content creation, distribution, and engagement metrics; and provides solution for colleges to help students engage in campus life and navigate path to graduation. The company serves universities and students. Campus Quad, Inc. was incorporated in 2012 and is based in San Carlos, California.
netLibrary
Series C in 1999
NetLibrary, provides access to electronic books (eBooks), including reference books.
Lumen Learning, LLC
Series C in 2018
Lumen helps educational institutions reduce textbook costs and improve student success using open educational resources and learning analytics. It creates affordable digital course materials using open educational resources (OER). Every Lumen OER course is designed to improve learning and replace expensive textbooks in high-enrollment college courses. Adding timely updates, learning design, and technical support to OER, Lumen makes the transition to open content simple, reliable, and effective for instructors and students.
It was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in Portland, Oregon.
TetraData
Acquisition in 2006
TetraData Corporation, headquartered in Greenville, S.C., is a privately-held company organized in January of 1997 with an exclusive focus on K-12 education. TetraData has demonstrated a passion and commitment to the advancement of education through technology and is recognized by many industry leaders as a catalyst in education improvement. A growing company with more than 50 employees, TetraData boasts a strong pool of both education and software engineering innovators dedicated to helping nation’s schools reach and sustain high performance.
TetraData’s solutions are currently installed in more than 600 K-12 educational institutions serving over 1.5 million students in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
ThinkCERCA
Series B in 2017
ThinkCERCA’s personalized literacy platform helps educators teach critical thinking skills through argumentative writing. With students and teachers using its platform in all 50 states and 130 countries, the company has partnered with prominent leaders in education, including Follett Corporation, and has been featured by The Atlantic and EdSurge. A 2016 SIAA CODiE Awards finalist in the Best Learning Capacity-Building Solution and Best Reading/English/Language Arts Instructional Solution categories, ThinkCERCA has also been named one of the best tools in ed tech by Common Sense’s Graphite. In July 2013, ThinkCERCA was the recipient of a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Literacy Courseware Challenge grant, and in December 2012, graduated from the inaugural class of Impact Engine’s social impact accelerator. To learn more, please visit ThinkCERCA.com
NextTier Education
Acquisition in 2018
NextTier Education is reimagining the college application process to ease the complexities and frustration of applying to college in a way that is so engaging that students feel pulled through the experience instead of forced, allowing them to focus on fulfilling their dreams rather than the process to get there. It provides mobile and web applications that streamline and takes the guesswork out of applying to college. Its mobile-based postsecondary readiness platform delivers critical information on every two- and four-year college in the U.S.
It was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.
Advanced-Online
Acquisition in 2015
Advanced-Online is a leading provider of Online Company store Programs.
BetterKnow
Acquisition in 2013
BetterKnow provides an institutional cloud-based service that makes course materials from ALL sources easily discoverable for instructors, affordable for students, and generates revenue for the institution. BetterKnow seamlessly integrates with the institution workflows and infrastructure, becoming the System Of Record (SOR) for course materials.
Wobo, Inc.
Acquisition in 2016
Founded by Woody Hunt in 2004, Woody's Books started as an online vendor of books, cds and dvds. Selling through various online marketplaces including Amazon.com and Half.com gave Woody's Books the foundation to build each of the other business units in place today.
