Newsela, a NYC-based publishing platform that aims to promote literacy, raised $15m in Series B funding.
The round was led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) with participation from Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan and Women’s Venture Capital Fund, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Owl Ventures. In conjunction with the round, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers’ partner Brook Byers will join Newsela’s board of directors.
The company will use the funds to accelerate its machine learning capabilities and expand its presence.
Led by Matthew Gross, founder and CEO, Newsela publishes daily news articles from media sources like the Associated Press, Washington Post, Tribune News Service and Scientific American at five reading levels to engage students in grades 2-12 in high-interest topics such as immigration, diplomacy, drones, animal extinction, etc. When students read articles and take Common Core-aligned quizzes online, they are developing nonfiction literacy skills that allow them to take part in conversations about complex issues, and prepare for academic and professional success.
More than 400,000 teachers have assigned more than 57 million articles to their students via Newslea.
FinSMEs
06/10/2015