HERE’S THE CATCH: Education Networks of America (ENA), a national broadband and cloud-based services provider for schools, has acquired the Dallas-based startup CatchOn. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Founded in 2016 by Jena Draper, CatchOn offers districts a tool that tracks data relating to technology use and implementation—essentially, allowing admins to see usage activity on school devices. It was backed by Arc Capital Development and several private investors, although the company operated on a relatively tight budget with only a handful of employees, according to Lillian Kellogg, ENA’s senior vice president.
ENA originally began working the company when it became an authorized reseller for CatchOn. ENA currently operates as a reseller for a handful of edtech products for the districts it works with, negotiating discounts with companies such as BrainPop, Learn360 and Grade Results. The CatchOn deal is ENA’s first in education, although it had previously acquired TeleQuality, a company that offered similar broadband and cloud services for the healthcare market.
At the time of the deal, CatchOn was making revenue, its founder tells EdSurge, but she declined to say whether it was profitable. The goal of the acquisition, Kellogg says, is to introduce the product to a larger market, or as much as 10 percent of K-12 classrooms.
