SOCRATIVE: Acquired by Salt Lake City, UT-based MasteryConnect for $5 million in cash and stock. Founded in 2010 and based in Boston, Socrative offers a real-time student response system that allows teachers to easily create quizzes that to check for student understanding. These quizzes can be taken on a variety of mobile and desktop devices. Ben Berte, Socrative's CEO, tells EdSurge that the company has over 750,000 teacher users around the world, "with 30,000 new teachers signing up each month."
MasteryConnect will integrate Socrative with its suite of formative assessment products that allow teachers to track students' mastery of Common Core standards. According to the release, MasteryConnect's tools are used in 85 percent of U.S. school districts and over 175 countries. With this acquisition, the company will reportedly reach 21 million students and 1 million teachers.
"Both companies are doing formative assessments from different points in the process," says Berte. Socrative "helps teachers make decisions during class time. [MasteryConnect] is about helping them with the planning." He says Socrative will also be available as a standalone app.
Jennifer Carolan, managing director at NewSchools Venture Fund (which is an investor in both companies) told Dow Jones that "the deal could be a harbinger of more consolidation to come for early-sage education tech ventures."
An Imagine K12 graduate, Socrative has raised $750K in seed funding. The team will be relocating to Salt Lake City, where MasteryConnect is based.
