Private School Raises $33 Million To Pay Engineers

Financing

Private School Raises $33 Million To Pay Engineers

Mar 18, 2014

BIG MONEY, SMALL SCHOOL: A whopping $33 million goes to San Francisco-based private school provider AltSchool in a series A round led by Founders Fund and Andreesen Horowitz. AltSchool was founded by Max Ventilla, a former Google exec and cofounder of Aardvark. A $4 million seed round was previously raised from First Round Capital, Harrison Metal, John Doerr, Omidyar Network, and others.

The school is known for an extreme personalized learning model. Student receive a customized playlist from teachers each week and follow their own personalized learning plan through online activities and direct instruction. The school hosts an 8:1 student teacher ratio and charges $19,100 for tuition each year. Compensation for teachers, which is higher than average, also includes the prospect to build equity in the start up.

AltSchool plans to spend the majority of it’s recent funding on engineers who will design software and apps focused on automating administrative tasks such as hiring, payroll, and admissions.

Currently, there are 20 students at a the school’s Dogpatch location in San Francisco. However, there are plans to expand their micro school model to four locations throughout the Bay Area by 2014-15. More about their plans from SFGate.

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