Guaranteach, Web-based Learning Service, Acquired by Sophia

Innosight Ventures’ Portfolio Company to Significantly Enhance Sophia’s Growing Social Learning Platform

BOSTON--()--Innosight Ventures announced that one of its portfolio companies, Guaranteach, a web-based service that provides math video tutorials along with assessment tools to K-12 students and teachers, has been acquired by Sophia, an online social teaching and learning platform that offers content to enhance the learning process.

Guaranteach, founded in 2008 by George Tattersfield and Alasdair Trotter, was inspired by the disruptive educational theories of Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen and education expert Michael Horn. The company serves teachers and students by delivering nearly 23,000 short-form, personalized videos that comply with local educational standards.

Innosight Ventures, the investment arm of innovation and growth consulting firm Innosight (www.innosight.com), provides seed-stage funding and incubation for disruptive startups that have significant potential to provide affordable, convenient solutions and services to consumers.

Scott Anthony, managing director of Innosight Ventures, based in Singapore, said: “This acquisition is a perfect fit with Innosight’s mission of fostering the growth of disruptive offerings and business models that offer affordable and accessible solutions to consumers. Sophia is the ideal company to bring Guaranteach’s math tutorials to a larger audience of students and teachers and to further the goal of personalized, accessible, standards-based learning.”

“Combining forces with Sophia will allow us to achieve our mission of bringing accessible, personalized learning to K-12 education. As part of Sophia’s growing platform, Guaranteach will be able to expand its reach and bring personalized math learning to a greater number of students and teachers. Our short-form videos are a perfect complement to Sophia’s social networking tools,” said George Tattersfield, Guaranteach’s founder and CEO.

Guaranteach’s extensive library covers over 1,700 math topics, from basic math to advanced algebra. The videos are personalized through adaptive algorithms that apply the learning styles of each student based on analyzing historical as well as real-time interactions. Other algorithms manage the selection of lessons for teachers. Guaranteach currently has more than 7,000 individual student subscriptions in the United States, Canada, and Australia.

Don Smithmier, founder and CEO of Sophia, which is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, said: “Guaranteach’s videos will be a significant enhancement to Sophia’s expanding social learning platform. By combining our strengths, we will be able to offer a more fully comprehensive learning experience for students and teachers.”

Sophia (www.sophia.org), a first-of-its-kind online social teaching and learning platform that launched in March 2011, offers academic content to anyone, anywhere free of charge. Sophia uses Web 2.0 tools and methods to create a credible, crowd-sourced platform where information is organized in "learning packets" – bite-sized tutorials tagged to specific academic subjects or topics, including standards-aligned objectives. The packets can be created by anyone, anywhere using text, images, presentations, video, audio and more. Packets are rated for quality and evaluated for academic soundness by users and experts within the community.

About Innosight

Innosight is a strategic innovation consulting and investment firm with offices in Boston, Singapore, and India. The company works with Fortune 500 companies as well as startups in a range of industries to identify opportunities for transformational growth, to build new businesses, and to create competitive innovation capabilities. Innosight Ventures, the investment arm of Innosight, is based in Singapore and provides seed funding and incubation to startups with disruptive solutions and technologies. Visit www.innosight.com.

About Guaranteach

Founded in 2008 by George Tattersfield and Alasdair Trotter, Guaranteach uses Web-based streaming videos to deliver customized math instruction. The company designs and builds innovative software, to change the way that computers are used in education, combining experience in teaching, parenting, entrepreneurship and technology. The company has been funded by Innosight Ventures, a venture capital firm which provided seed-stage funding and incubation for several startups that fit the pattern of disruptive innovation, NewSchools Venture Fund, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. For more information please visit www.guaranteach.com.

About Sophia

Sophia is a first-of-its-kind social teaching and learning application that makes free, credible academic content available to anyone at anytime by harnessing the power of the Internet to enable everyone to participate in a worldwide learning community. Sophia was created on the premise that there are millions of great ideas, methods, lessons and people who can contribute to society's goals of spreading knowledge and making education better and more effective. For more information, visit www.sophia.org.

Contacts

Innosight
Cathy Olofson, 617-393-4517

Release Summary

Guaranteach, an Innosight Ventures portfolio company that provides video tutorials along with assessment tools to K-12 students and teachers, has been acquired by Sophia, a social learning company.

Contacts

Innosight
Cathy Olofson, 617-393-4517