Emile, a digital learning platform for high school students, recently announced that it has raised $5.3 million in a seed funding round.
The round was led by Kleiner Perkins with participation from other investors including SoftBank Opportunity Fund, Owl Ventures, Uber Alum Syndicate, and notable private investors such as John Thornton (Former President of Goldman Sachs), Steven Galanis (Founder of Cameo), and Ankur Nagpal (Founder of Teachable).
Founded in 2020 by Felix Ruano, Michael Vilardo, and Jon Quiros, Emile operates as a subscription-based learning platform for high school students. Unlike other online platforms, Emile enables students to take classes at their leisure without having to abide by a strict schedule. Regardless of when a student decides to take a class, they will still be linked with thousands of others via Emile’s online learning community.
Emile mimics the best trend in consumer tech and media to provide the most engaging learning experience for high school students. The platform empowers students to enjoy its classes for supplemental learning or full-time high school and college credits via the Advanced Placement (AP) exams. Emile’s platform currently offers 16 AP courses and 10 core classes that span a wide range of subjects. The platform claimed to have served over 50,000 students to date.
Speaking about the platform, Michael Vilardo, Co-founder & COO of Emile, was quoted as saying by Built In,
“We want to be able to help empower our students to be able to take any technical, elective or core class they want for credit, and actually have a chance to be able to go to either a top-tier university in the United States or go directly into the workforce and be able to be a contributing member to society. We realized right away that not everyone’s path is the same and we want to empower that personalized success.”
The Los Angeles-based company plans to use the fresh capital to expand its class offerings with a goal to launch more than 15 new courses over the next 12 months. The company also plans to expand its engineering, product, and design teams.
Emile became a fully accredited online high school in May 2020, accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC). Emile’s monthly subscriptions are available for $30 or students can opt to take a course solo for a one-time fee of $250. For organizations, subscriptions are paid annually and cost anywhere from $4 to $17 per user, per month.
