Education doesn’t stop when a person graduates from school, which is why Cypher Learning builds educational tools for both the classroom and beyond.
On Friday, San Francisco-based Cypher Learning announced that it raised $40 million in growth equity from Invictus Growth Partners. This funding is noteworthy because it marks the first time Cypher Learning has sought outside financing since the company was started in 2009.
The company first launched with NEO, a learning management system (LMS) for schools and universities. NEO allows school faculty and staff to do things like create online classes, facilitate collaboration, assess student performance and track achievements all in one place.
Soon after its launch, Cypher Learning added MATRIX to its product portfolio. MATRIX takes a similar approach to learning management systems, but applies it to business. With MATRIX, businesses can deliver trainings, track employee performance and provide online courses on a single platform.
Since then, Cypher Learning has added a third LMS, dubbed INDIE, which is designed for entrepreneurs. INDIE takes a very similar approach as the other two Cypher platforms but is designed for individual education.
These learning platforms are used by millions of people across the world and are available in over 40 languages. But this growth investment will allow Cypher Learning to grow its reach even further. The company says the new financing will be used to accelerate sales, marketing and development operations for its platforms, as well as invest in ways to increase the company’s profitability.
Remote learning tools have become especially valuable in the past year, as schools were forced to close their doors during the COVID-19 pandemic. Even with schools in the U.S. reopening for in-person learning, these virtual education tools will likely remain a part of how schools operate. And this trend extends beyond the classroom too. According to one study, the corporate LMS market is expected to continually grow over the next few years, hitting $7.57 billion by 2026 (up from $1.78 billion in 2019) — implying that educational software tools will continue to be something that businesses spend money on.
“Our mission is to innovate in education and have a major impact on the way people teach and learn. We bootstrapped the business to profitability so [we] had a high bar in terms of bringing on an equity partner that would bring more than just capital,” Graham Glass, Cypher Learning CEO and founder, said in a statement. “Invictus is the perfect partner for us, bringing deep operating expertise, a broad network and unique data science resources that will enhance our platform and help us scale faster. We are excited to have Invictus as a partner as we continue to accelerate our vision of providing enterprises and educational institutions worldwide with the best online teaching and learning experience.”
With this funding, Invictus co-founder and managing partner John DeLoche will join Cypher Learning’s board of directors.
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