School search tool Niche acquired Goodkind, a communication platform aimed at connecting potential students with academic institutions, the companies announced.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Pittsburgh-based Niche said the deal will allow the higher education and K-12 institutions it works with to provide proactive, personalized, and real-time information to students based on their needs and where they are in the school search process.
The acquisition is Niche’s first. The company, which has raised $44.6 million in venture funding since 2015 according to data from Tracxn, also reported turning a profit for the first time this past year.
“This is a huge milestone for Niche, Goodkind, and the industry we serve,” Luke Skurman, founder and CEO of Niche, said in a statement.
The team at Goodkind, which is based in Toronto, Canada, shares Niche’s “mission-driven commitment to addressing the critical challenges facing education today,” he added, and said that its product suite has been “highly effective” in reaching students and families in new ways.
“By bringing Goodkind’s talented team and innovative technology into Niche, we can deliver the tools, insights, and outcomes that today’s education landscape demand,” he said.
Goodkind, which reports having 85 institutional customers, offers schools the ability to connect with students via video messaging, texting, WhatsApp, video reels, chatbots, and other tools.
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The startup, which has raised a total of $125,000 in funding from Y Combinator, will remain an independent product initially and will be gradually integrated into the existing Niche platform, Niche said. Goodkind’s leadership team and existing employees will remain with Niche.
In a statement, Goodkind co-founder and CEO and Justin Rotman said getting to know Skurman and the Niche team in recent years made it clear that “joining forces would allow us to have an even greater impact – at scale and with speed – creating unparalleled value for institutions, schools, students and families.”
Saudi Arabian Ed-Tech Startup Raises $5M. YNMO, a Saudi Arabian ed-tech company focused on students with disabilities, raised $5 million in a venture round led by Wa’ed Ventures, the investment arm of Saudi-owned oil behemoth Aramco.
Qatar Development and impact-focused venture fund Nour Nouf Ventures also participated in the round.
YNMO was founded in 2017 by twin brothers and special education researchers Fahad Al-Nemary and Faisal Al-Nemary, along with Abdullah Murad, an assistant professor at the College of Computer and Information Systems at Umm Al-Qura University and the former director of business incubation and acceleration programs at Wadi Makkah Technology Company.
The company’s platform is aimed at helping parents and schools assess students with disabilities and track and monitor their progress. The startup also offers a communication tool to connect education providers with families and a direct-to-consumer product that allows families to track their children’s learning and social and emotional development.
With the new funding the company aims to further build out the product’s features and build its customer base of governmental, educational, and rehabilitative institutions across the Gulf region.
“This funding will accelerate our mission to improve services for children with disabilities,” YNMO CEO Fahad Al-Nemary said. “Together, we are committed to creating a future where every child, regardless of their abilities, has the right to quality education and support.”
