WYZANT: Chicago-based WyzAnt, which provides an online marketplace where students can find local tutors, has raised $21.5 million from Accel Partners, to expand its services. Accel partners Ryan Sweeney and John Locke will be joining the company board of directors. The company has bootstrapped its business since 2005 and now has cumulative gross sales of $100 million (although it's not clear how much that amounts to each year). WyzAnt is big: It has more than 500,000 tutors, a million students and covers 240 subjects from elementary school through university-level courses.
Accel put a similar investment earlier this year into Lynda.com, which reached $100 million in annual revenue in 2012 and went for 17 years without taking venture capital.
The funding will help the company build online tutoring capabilities, develop mobile apps, and hire 50 new employees for its Chicago headquarters. It also aims to build out its “Resources” section, which offers students a range of supplementary educational content, like Q&A forums, lesson plans, videos and blog posts.
Tutoring is a tricky business. Y Combinator startup, TutorSpree, shut down in September. In March, Pearson snapped up TutorVista.
