LIVESCHOOL: $1.65M to Nashville, TN-based LiveSchool. Lead investors include Nashville Capital Network, the affiliated Tennessee Angel, Solidus Company, Rick Theobald, former COO at KIPP Nashville; and Steve Butler, technology executive and a former board member at STEM Prep Academy in Nashville. LiveSchool is a school-wide classroom management app for PCs and tablets. It rewards students with good behavior through a token economy of a school's choosing (think "Behavior Bucks"). Administrators get their own dashboard to compare student performance across teachers.
The company was founded two years ago by brothers Matt and Eric Rubinstein. Matt taught at KIPP, which used LiveSchool in beta form. From there, the project was seed funded with money raised through friends and family and has now been used in 45 schools in 15 states. (More info in the press release here.) For instance, in addition to KIPP, LiveSchool is also being used by the Achievement School District.
So what do kids want most out of a token economy? Director of marketing, Jesse Feister explains, "Surprisingly, long-term goals have been popular with our schools. Kids learn about financial literacy with LiveSchool. More than small, immediate rewards, they want to save up for the field trip at the end of the month."
