Engageli Launches with $14.5M to Revolutionize Remote Teaching

Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet have rapidly become essential resources for educators adapting to remote instruction since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, these platforms were not originally conceived for classroom environments, creating an opening for developers aiming to create a more purpose-built solution.

Today, a new company named Engageli is publicly launching its service, designed to address this need. This video conferencing tool was specifically engineered as a digital learning platform, offering a distinct approach to virtual classrooms. Engageli is initially targeting the higher education sector and is entering the market with $14.5 million in seed funding from a Benchmark partner and other investors.

The substantial seed funding, particularly for a startup still in its pilot phase (interested parties can apply to join via email), may be attributed to the experienced team behind Engageli.

The company’s founders include Dan Avida, Serge Plotkin, Daphne Koller, and Jamie Nacht Farrell. Avida is a general partner at Opus Capital and previously co-founded Decru with Plotkin, which was later acquired by NetApp. Plotkin is a Stanford emeritus professor. Koller is a co-founder of Coursera and also holds a position as an adjunct professor at Stanford. Farrell formerly held executive roles at Trilogy and 2U, two prominent online learning organizations.

Interestingly, Avida and Koller are also married, and their observations of their children’s experiences during the previous school year – with the oldest now a student at UC Berkeley – were the catalyst for establishing Engageli.

“The concept originated in March when our daughters transitioned to ‘Zoom School.’ One focused heavily on entertainment, while the other significantly improved her gaming scores,” he noted with a touch of humor.

Their primary concern was that the existing format lacked effective mechanisms for connecting with students individually, verifying their engagement, and ensuring comprehension and genuine interest in the material.

“Teachers and schools adopted conferencing systems because they were readily available,” he explained. However, drawing on the team’s collective experience with e-learning initiatives at Coursera – which developed infrastructure for delivering university courses to large online audiences – and Trilogy and 2U (now a combined entity offering online learning for universities and boot camps), “we believed we could develop a superior system from the outset.”

Despite the inspiration stemming from their children’s schooling, Engageli strategically chose to initially focus on higher education due to the greater level of interest received from potential pilot customers. Avida also believes that the existing market for remote learning in higher education presents a larger opportunity.

“While K-12 schools will likely return to traditional settings,” he stated, “we anticipate that higher education will embrace a blended model with an increasing emphasis on online learning,” a trend that also motivated the creation of Coursera, Trilogy, and 2U. “Younger students benefit from in-person interaction, but college students often balance work, family, and studies, making online learning a more convenient option.”

A key advantage of providing enhanced tools for university classrooms is that “students invest in tuition to access professors and peers, and this offers a means to facilitate that connection in a remote environment,” he added.

Currently, Engageli enables instructors to conduct both synchronous (live) and asynchronous (recorded) lessons, allowing students and teachers to review material or substitute a live session if needed.

The platform is designed for seamless integration into existing workflows, requiring no specialized desktop or mobile applications, as it functions within all major web browsers. Avida also highlighted its compatibility with the software systems already utilized by many universities for managing educational content and tracking student progress. (Minimizing barriers to entry is particularly important given the prevalence of existing solutions and the challenges of encouraging institutions to switch platforms.)

However, Engageli’s most distinctive feature lies in its reimagining of the virtual classroom.

The platform allows teachers to create “tables” where students can collaborate in smaller groups. These tables facilitate more personalized engagement, either directly by the instructor or, in larger classes, by assigned teaching assistants.

Even during asynchronous sessions (recorded lessons), students at the same table can participate in a partially “live” experience, discussing the material with their group members. The tables are also accessible before class, allowing students to connect and converse before the session begins.

In addition to its lesson recording and playback capabilities, Engageli is developing analytics tools that enable professors (or their assistants) to assess the quality of audio and video for both themselves and their audience, and to gather other forms of “engagement” data, such as responses to questions, polls, and interactive media.

Collectively, these features aim to provide valuable feedback and ensure that all participants maximize their remote learning experience.

The education sector has historically been a relatively understated area within the startup landscape, often overshadowed by more prominent fields like social media or those challenging industry leaders like Amazon and Google.

However, the pandemic has brought renewed attention to opportunities in this field, both to meet the sudden demand for remote learning tools and to foster more innovative approaches, as exemplified by Engageli.

Just recently, Kahoot – a platform for creating and utilizing gamified learning applications – secured $215 million in funding from SoftBank. Other recent investments include Outschool ($45 million, now profitable), Homer ($50 million from strategic investors), Unacademy ($150 million), and the Indian company Byju’s ($500 million from Silver Lake).

Alongside the increased focus on education, there has been a notable surge in startups offering novel approaches to videoconferencing.

Last week, Headroom – founded by experienced entrepreneurs – launched an AI-powered alternative to Zoom, providing automatic transcriptions, automated highlights, and insights into the engagement levels of webinars and other video content.

Apps like Headroom and Engageli represent just the beginning, with other innovative solutions emerging and attracting significant funding. The key question remains whether these platforms will gain traction with customers who are currently “satisfied enough” with their existing tools.

However, in a technology environment driven by disruption and the pursuit of superior solutions to established markets, it is a venture worth pursuing.

“Dan, Serge, and Daphne have consistently built rapidly growing, highly successful companies. I am incredibly fortunate to collaborate with them once again,” stated Alex Balkanski, a Benchmark partner investing individually, in a press release. “Investing in a company focused on education is deeply meaningful to me, and Engageli has the potential to enable a truly transformative learning experience.”

Updated to clarify that Balkanski is investing privately, not through Benchmark.