iowa based startup raises $5.5 million to create a learning engine to power education
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Higher Learning Technologies (HLT), an Iowa-based start-up, is pleased to announce they have closed their Series A investment round of $5.5 million led by a group of New York Super Angel investors. The company will use the capital to grow it’s software platform which has over 500,000 users from nearly every corner of the globe. In just two years the startup has been able to create six smart-phone Apps that rank among the top 100 grossing education Apps in both App stores. One of their Apps, NCLEX RN Mastery, was the number one grossing educational App on both iOS and Android App stores.TRANSCRIPT
For Immediate ReleaseFor more information contact:
Company: Higher Learning TechnologiesPhone: (319) 721-8559E-mail: [email protected]: www.hltcorp.com http://press.hltcorp.com/
Iowa Based Startup Raises $5.5 Million to Create a Learning Engine to Power Education
Higher Learning Technologies (HLT), an Iowa-based start-up, is pleased to announce they have closed their Series A investment round of $5.5 million led by a group of New York Super Angel investors. The company will use the capital to grow it’s software platform which has over 500,000 users from nearly every corner of the globe. In just two years the startup has been able to create six smart-phone Apps that rank among the top 100 grossing education Apps in both App stores. One of their Apps, NCLEX RN Mastery, was the number one grossing educational App on both iOS and Android App stores. HLT bases it’s early success on making educational materials more convenient, providing world class custom-er service, using high quality content, and world class software that students can trust. CEO Alec Whitters under-stands students’ struggles, “the problem is that students have an overload of information and are so busy that they can only touch a small fraction of it. We want to make it so that students can be learning no matter where they are with a learning system that adapts to their individual needs.” With the new investment the company plans on expanding it's software to support desktop devices, expanding their rapidly growing team, and adding more fields of study to their product lineup. The company will focus on creating an anytime, anywhere learning engine to help make the learning process easier. The company's software intends to do this by utilizing all the data about student’s performance to create a personalized learning path. In the long term HLT will also be building out a content management system to work outside of just test prep. Their goal is to create an all encompassing platform that allows people in corporate work-places, classrooms, and lifelong learners to learn effectively and efficiently.
“We feel that education has changed more in the past 5 years than in the 50 before it and that the revolution is just getting started. There is so much content available in todays world and now, through smart-phones, students have a medium that they can use to get access to it. We want to optimize that delivery channel” - Alec Whitters, CEO The Numbers:
Since the launch of their first app in 2012, HLT has grown from three best friends with an idea, to employing over 30 team members across the country, a number that will continue to grow rapidly. HLT closed their initial seed round at over $1 million in late January with notable investors including: former ACT Chairman/CEO, Richard Ferguson, Involta Founder/CEO Bruce Lehrman, Joseph Whitters of Frazier Healthcare, Adam Ingersoll Founder and Principal of Compass Education Group, and Ravi Patel, President of Hawkeye Hotels.
From Frustration to Revolution:
HLT is the creation of CEO Alec Whitters, who saw a glaring need while studying for his dental licenser exam in 2012. Whitters was frustrated with being forced to rely on the outdated method of expensive paper flash cards and large heavy textbooks to study when he had a smart-phone that could do so much more. In an attempt to find a solution to his problem, HLT was born. Whitters first reached out to publishing companies to convince them they needed a mobile study solution, but they dismissed it as “a dumb idea,” says Whitters. After countless phone calls and emails he decided that if no one else would do it, he would have to. Whitters, after recruiting his two childhood best friends Adam Keune and Ben O’Con-nor, began working on the App and shortly then after left dental school to create HLT. With the help of professors who donated course content, HLT debuted their first App, Dental Boards Mastery in November 2012.
By May of 2013, HLT released their second app, a study tool for the nursing licenser exam, NCLEX RN Mas-tery, which soon became the top-grossing educational App on iOS and Google Play, and ranked in the top 125 grossing Apps overall. HLT now has 7 different Apps available in both stores.
Left to Right: Ben O’Connor (CO-founder), Adam Keune (CO-Founder), Alec Whitters (CO-Founder and CEO)Photo courtesy of the Des Moines Register