SCHOOLRACK: Acquired by Leading Capital SGPS, a private holding firm with offices in Portugal and Vancouver. Founded in 2003 by Artia Moghbel (then a high school student), SchoolRack offers a learning management system where teachers can create class websites with features like discussion boards, gradebooks, assignment collections, and parent and student messaging. The Los Angeles-based company boasts "hundreds of thousands of teachers and millions of students" worldwide.
Terms of the deal were undisclosed. Moghbel divulged with EdSurge that Leading Capital plans to incorporate technologies, such as video conferencing, from other portfolio companies into the SchoolRack platform. Two of the six listed on its website offer children's entertainment content.
Moghbel will be sticking around to advise Leading Capital as it continues development on SchoolRack. He sees himself sticking around in the edtech space afterwards, leveraging his connections and eight years of experience selling to schools and districts, a "brutal sales cycle and a bit of a slog," he admits. Certainly sounds like he's got some battle scars and pearls of wisdom worth sharing.
