Google Capital, one of the Mountain View company’s venture arms, announced today it is investing $40 million into Wisconsin-based Renaissance Learning, a K-12 cloud-based assessment and learning analytics company with over 1,000 employees.
“We didn’t need the capital, but it definitely opens the door,” for many other opportunities, said Renaissance Learning CEO Jack Lynch.
With this infusion, Google now owns a small percentage of the company. Renaissance Learning is a major player in the online education space. It is majority owned by European equity firm Permira.
Lynch said revenues are robust (although he wouldn’t give me a figure) and that over 20 million students currently use the system. Renaissance Learning’s solutions are in use at one third of the nation’s schools. The company has a valuation, he said, of $1 billion.
The company’s cloud-based analytics allow teachers to track student performance and progress across multiple subjects. The harvested data then presents educators with alternative solutions when pupils encounter problems in reading, writing, math, and language courses, for example.