GRAIDE FOR GOOD WRITING GRADES: The Graide Network, a Chicago-based company that uses a network of remote teaching assistants to help improve K-12 students’ writing and critical thinking skills, has raised over $1 million in a seed round led by Network Ventures. A spokesperson said other investors were a “group of angels and other Chicago-based funds,” but declined to disclose their names.
According to a press release, the teaching assistants are undergraduate and graduate students who work virtually with K-12 classroom teachers to grade and give feedback on students’ writing assignments.
The company will use the money to expand to more schools. Currently, it operates in over 50 schools, with nearly 40 percent of them in Illinois, the spokesperson said. It will also use the funds to hire employees for its engineering and product team, in order to build the next version of its grading and feedback software, and build new technology that will match the teaching assistants to assignments.
