Australian EdTech startup Clipboard has raised $3.1 million in an undisclosed funding round to develop its school extracurricular activities platform.
The funding round was led by Sydney-based venture capital firm EVP, with participation from Jelix Ventures and Sprint Ventures.
Founded in 2017 by then-university students Ed Colyer and Sam Clarke, Clipboard helps schools run better extracurricular activities so students get more value out of them. While coaching basketball at their former high school, they became frustrated with the manual systems being used to organise extracurricular programs and activities. They felt there were limitations on organisation and communication, which ultimately impacted participation. They also realised this was a problem being faced by most schools in Australia.
“That experience provided us with the insights we needed to improve extracurricular delivery for students, parents, and schools,” co-founder and head of product Colyer said as quoted by SmartCompany. “It is simply impossible to have an exceptional experience for hundreds or thousands of participants when you’re using paper forms and Google Sheets.”
So the team created a mobile-friendly and single-point platform to manage all activities and communication. The aim was to not only save time on admin but to improve child safety and communication between staff, parents, and students.
Clipboard’s flagship product is an extracurricular management system (EMS), which schools use to manage activities ranging from choir to basketball, to code clubs, outdoor education, public speaking, and everything in between.
Clipboard plans to use the fresh capital raised to further build out its platform and hire new staff to drive local adoption. The company claimed it has grown by more than 200 percent in the last financial year.
Daniel Szekely, Partner at EVP, said,
“We love that this is a business by students and teachers for students and teachers. The founders aren’t coming in as consultants to make a quick buck, they truly appreciate the pain points and are on a mission to improve extracurricular delivery. With the capital raised, the business is now attracting top-tier talent from much larger EdTech businesses and we are excited by its growth plans locally and offshore.”
Daniel Szekely has joined Clipboard’s board following the investment.
Clipboard’s platform is now used in more than 100 schools in Australia and Southeast Asia, reaching over 60,000 students and parents each week.
Some of the schools using the platform include Pymble Ladies’ College, Geelong Grammar School, Matthew Flinders Anglican College, Covenant Christian School, and Bunbury Cathedral Grammar School.
