Levered Learning Launches Equity Crowdfunding Campaign

(Source: Levered Learning)

August 6, 2020 — Santa Cruz, CA

EdTech company seeks to build a grassroots community with people passionate about equitable access to technology in education, quality instruction in math, and shared prosperity.

When schools went remote last spring, Levered Learning’s focus on giving teachers real-time data about their students’ progress in math became a lifeline for student learning. In the first week of closures, schools using Levered were able to transition to home-based education seamlessly and thousands of kids in California made gains in math rather than suffer the learning loss that is a part of every education news story right now.

Now, Levered is launching an equity crowdfunding campaign to build a grassroots community with people who are passionate about equitable access to technology in education, quality instruction in math, and shared prosperity.

“Equity-based crowdfunding has grown since the start of the pandemic,” says Joshua Bradley, co-founder, and CTO of Levered Learning. “With daily news about ‘pandemic pods’ and microschools, our campaign with Republic gives us the ability to reach directly out to people with kids who are concerned about their education, and allow them to join us in our mission to make sure every student has access to high-quality math curriculum.”

The Levered system

Levered’s data-driven instructional system blends whole class math talks, group pencil & paper activities, and online self-paced lessons that support both classroom and distance-based instruction.

With Levered’s instructional tools, teachers can assure every student gets the right balance of challenge and support, daily. Levered engages and motivates students who might otherwise fall through the cracks with adaptive pacing and supports to boost language development.

. At Levered:

• Students at Title 1 schools show 70% higher math growth with Levered than those in the same grade the previous school year.
• Levered’s growth is over 80% organic. Fueled by teacher and principal recommendations, we achieved 4x growth in students in 2019 and have already doubled our revenue since COVID-19.
• In 2020, Levered was recognized as one of the world’s most innovative ed-tech companies by the ASU+GSV Elite 200 and received a Research-backed Product Certification from Digital Promise.

Rather than approaching technology as an added layer to an existing curriculum, Levered was built as a complete, technology-enabled instructional system from the ground up. The result is a powerful teaching tool that allows teachers to focus on what matters most: their students.

Educators love Levered

This school year, Levered saw 4x growth to over 5,000 students in 200+ U.S. classrooms. The company has approximately 15% of their initial Serviceable Available Market (SAM) in their pipeline representing $1.3 million in potential sales. Levered is projecting $300,000 in 2020.

“With COVID-19 dramatically impacting in-school learning, schools and districts are scrambling to find solutions that can meet the needs of distance and classroom instruction. And the trend is only going to grow,” says Bradley. “Levered is ready to help schools meet these uncertain times right now, and our growth has doubled since the start of COVID-19.”

Levered’s growth has been 80% organic, cultivating partnerships with industry leaders like the California Association of Latino Superintendents and Administrators (CALSA), EdSurge, and the California Association for Bilingual Education (CABE).

They were also recognized as one of the world’s 200 most innovative edtech companies from 21 countries in the 2020 ASU+GSV Elite 200 and recently received a Research-backed Product Certification from Digital Promise. 

Global edtech market estimated at $350 billion by 2025

UNESCO estimates COVID19 school closures impacted 67.6% of learners in 143 countries. Classroom curriculum that also serves high-quality distance learning is critical to the future of education. Existing textbooks and tech products were failing math education even before the pandemic. 

Full implementation in the U.S. of Levered for 3rd–6th grade (13M+) would result in revenue of $1 billon. Their initial focus on California represents 20% of the American market. By targeting just five additional states, Levered opens 50% of the total Common Core market.

With Levered SaaS instructional system and online P.D., they can implement the program at any school or district across the country, or around the world, in just a week.

Greater impact, easier to implement, and lower total cost

Levered’s value proposition replaces multiple line items on school and district budgets with a single program that’s more cost-effective, easier to use, and that delivers better results in the first year.

According to a 2017 report by Learn Platform, only 9% of edtech purchases met the goals of schools and districts. In their 2020 Edtech Insights (post-COVID19) report, Learn saw a 30% increase in the amount of tools schools accessed, with only one core instruction product in the top 20, and a total of four in the top 40.

Levered’s goal is to promote better and more equitable math education. Over the last four years, they have seen consistent state test results that support the idea that the problems in global math literacy can be solved. The company is currently developing a full K-6th grade program in the next two years that’s up to the task.

A proven education and technology team

Levered Learning was founded by veteran teacher and CEO Mitch Slater and CTO Joshua Bradley, who were each on a mission to deliver more effective instructional tools to teachers, students and parents.

Investors

Levered has been self-funded to date with $720,000 in family investment. They actively piloted in classrooms during development, strengthening the efficacy of the product. After the company’s third year of pilots, they began selling their first full grade of curriculum to school partners for the 2019-20 school year, giving them a bootstrapped $96,000 in the second half of 2019. 

With a mature platform to offer schools, Levered will use investment capital to fuel growth, expand our existing grade offerings, and open up to a national market.

For more information on Levered Learning’s equity crowdfunding campaign, visit https://republic.co/levered.

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Tagged edtech, Levered Learning, Remote learning, Shelter at home