PeopleGrove Raises $4.7 Million in Series A Financing Round Led By Reach Capital

Three years ago, we started PeopleGrove with the mission to ensure each and every student and professional has access to a community and the connections needed to succeed.

We continue to believe that – by helping students have access to social capital, a network of supportive mentors, peers, advisers, and faculty – every young person can transform their trajectories.

We’re extremely humbled by the growth of the great PeopleGrove community! The PeopleGrove platform launched back in 2015 with the support of Stanford University as a close development partner. Today, PeopleGrove is proud to be partnering with over 180 institutions, ranging from large public universities like Kansas State University, Clemson University, and University of Michigan, to smaller private institutions and liberal arts colleges like Cornell University, Wellesley College and Williams College, to online universities such as UMUC. And today, PeopleGrove mentors have volunteered well over 50,000 hours of their time in support of students.

Today, we’re very excited to announce a new round of capital to further our impact.

I’m thrilled to announce that Reach Capital, a leading education technology fund backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, is leading our $4.7M Series A investment. In addition, this round includes participation from leading investors such as Bisk Ventures, Collaborative Fund, GSV Acceleration, Launch Capital, Riverpark Ventures, and University Ventures. We’re excited to leverage the collective experience of our investors to expand our impact for students and graduates around the world.

Growing our impact

With the new round of funding, we’re double down on our investment in product and engineering, driving further development of our platform across the entire student lifecycle, including Enrollment, Academic, Career and Alumni Success.  

Underlying our work is a deep-seated belief that all students, regardless of their background or experience, deserve access to the network and support necessary to access opportunity and ultimately achieve their goals — professionally and beyond. Our goal is to make the invisible, yet powerful, social capital networks that are often available to only a select few, instead open and accessible to all students.

At a time when universities need to serve an increasingly diverse range of students and demonstrate value, we know there’s no one size fits all solution. But one critical component of any solution is  a tangible, holistic student support system, comprised of alumni, staff, peers, mentors, and faculty, is critical for students to get the most out of their educational experience and investment.

“It’s vital for students to feel a sense of connection with Wellesley starting with the admissions process, across their entire academic experience, and beyond as they join our alumni ranks.  PeopleGrove is our platform for creating community in all phases of a student’s journey, which ultimately helps drive their academic, personal, and professional success,” commented Jennifer Pollard, Director of Operations and Analytics, Wellesley College.

Thank you

Thanks to our amazing partners who continue to invest deeply in supporting students! I appreciate your patience, valuable feedback and trust in us as we seek to continually improve. It was incredibly humbling to see over a hundred of you join us in our first ever Annual Conference just last summer – where we saw our mission-driven partners collaborate and share best practices using PeopleGrove in in their communities.

Course, we’ve got much work left to do! We’re excited to grow and build a diverse, mission-driven team. If you’re excited to make an impact and help students succeed, check out how we’re growing our Partnerships, Marketing and Customer Success teams here: https://www.peoplegrove.com/careers