While there are many things that go into making a human beings’ skill-set special, there are few more significant than our ability to find solutions on a rather consistent basis. You see, when you are able to find a way through all imaginable situations, you end up giving yourself a shot at clocking some really notable milestones. This is backed up well by whatever we have achieved so far. Talk about our milestones till date, each one has gone to enhance our living experience in its own unique manner, and yet if we sit down and assess them for a second, we’ll see how none could ever match the level of technology. Technology was a clear anomaly from the very beginning, as it introduced a dynamic that we had never seen before. Now, while it did so mainly on the back of some unprecedented capabilities, the versatile manner in which it used those capabilities also had a big say in facilitating the tech revolution. In fact, even after helping us become a full-fledged tech-driven society, the creation will continue to raise the floor under one capacity or the other, and one recent funding does a lot to keep that trend alive.
Prenda, a startup which has built a platform to deliver education through microschools, has successfully secured over $20 million in Series B financing. Led by Seven Seven Six (776), the round saw further participation coming from the likes of edtech-focused VC Learn Capital, Modern Venture Partners, and Peak State Ventures. According to certain reports, the company plans on using the newly-raised cash to fuel an expansion drive, which will see it covering more states, more students, and to support the growing numbers, it will also bring more guides on board. Apart from it, Prenda is looking to find inroads through which it can scale up all the existing programs, along with extra-curricular activities, thus adding an enormous value to their model.
When asked what led her to create a microschool in the first place, the founder and CEO of Prenda, Kelly Smith said:
“We arranged groups and provided learning guides to the kids. We then supported the process and helped them become empowered learners by setting their own goals,” she said. “By 2018 I was excited enough about this core learning hypothesis that I wanted to see if you could design a whole school around that.”
While microschools didn’t waste any time in tapping into a whole new dimension of educatiom, the sheer significance around it did grow dramatically during the pandemic, and even though students are now returning to previous setup, they remain aware of microschools and their upsides. This sets up Prenda for substantial economic growth moving forward.
“As a mom and a former teacher, I have spent a lot of time thinking about the power of a great education,” noted Katelin Holloway, Seven Seven Six founding partner. “Since the pandemic, every parent is asking the same questions. We see a future for education that empowers kids, rallies communities and includes everyone, and Prenda’s microschool model will be a big part of that.”