Schoology, developer of a cloud-based collaborative learning platform for K-20 classrooms, has closed a new USD6 million round of financing led by FirstMark Capital, a leading NYC-based venture capital firm. Schoology has raised USD9.3 million in funding to date.

Schoology's mission is to improve communication and collaboration inside and outside of the classroom by socially connecting educators, students and parents to a single platform with the resources they need to drive a better learning experience. Schoology bundles online learning, classroom management and social networking into one, easy-to-use, easy-to-deploy platform that is free to teachers and students. Districts can easily upgrade the platform to benefit from powerful administrative, security and analytics features that can easily integrate with existing systems.

"Schoology is breaking down the classroom walls and has become part of the daily workflow of how teachers engage with students. This is a true, market-disrupting technology and exactly what we look for in our portfolio companies," says Amish Jani (pictured), Managing Director at FirstMark Capital. "The platform approach Schoology brings to schools melds together the very best in cloud-based technologies like social networking, content management and collaboration, document sharing and enterprise management systems in one, easy-to-use web-based platform."

Schoology provides teachers and administrators with a full suite of learning management tools to manage lessons and homework assignments; administer and grade tests and quizzes; discover and embed new educational content and resources; share and collaborate with other educators on course materials; analyze individual student and overall classroom performance; and effectively communicate and engage with students in a secure online environment.

Leading schools and districts in the US and abroad have been quick to embrace Schoology. Ann Dunkin, Director of Technology at the Palo Alto Unified School District, representing 11,000 students, says: "We were looking for a learning management system that would provide an open platform for IT, an innovative pathway to incorporate new functionality and an appealing user interface for our users. When I saw Schoology, I knew we had a winner -- our students, staff and parents uniformly love Schoology."

"I have never seen any product be adopted as quickly as Schoology," says Keith Pomeroy, Director of Technology at Olentangy Local School District, the fastest-growing school district in Ohio with nearly 17,000 students. "Schoology has the lowest barrier to professional development I have ever seen in my 17-year career in educational technology. Most teachers know how to use it without any training. Even the more complex functionality is user-friendly and intuitive."

"Demand for the Schoology platform has surpassed our expectations, exponentially," says Jeremy Friedman, Founder and CEO of Schoology. "Nearly one million teachers and students at more than 18,000 schools and districts use the Schoology platform. This year will bring more exciting innovations as we pioneer and release transformative ways to connect our users to the best, and most relevant, academic content and applications."