Vivi, an Australia EdTech startup transforming classroom engagement, announced it has closed a funding round with New York-based investment group, Riverside Acceleration Capital (RAC). The total amount of the funding was not disclosed. The funding will help fast-track Vivi’s expansion into the US market, where it aims to replicate the success and growth achieved in the Australian region. This latest round brings Vivi’s total funding to date to AUD$6 million.
Just like other startups that started to address and solve some unmet needs, the story of Vivi is very inspiring. It all started way back in in 2013 when Australian tech entrepreneur Dr. Lior Rauchberger was asked to recommend a quality wireless presentation solution for a client. Their key criteria? It must be compatible across all devices and platforms. Seemed straightforward enough. But as Lior began his research, he was underwhelmed, to say the least. Solutions were either clunky and unreliable – or too expensive for the average workplace, university or school to afford.
From that moment, Lior knew there was a gap in the market. And he knew he had to fill it. He then joined forces with startup specialist Simon Holland and tech guru Tomas Spacek from Papercloud Ventures to make Vivi a reality. Their goal? To create the simplest and most intuitive wireless presentation solution in the world. Vivi officially launched in February 2016
Vivi’s goal is to create the simplest and most intuitive classroom engagement solution in the world, Vivi provides teachers with classroom management tools that drive student productivity and monitor health and wellbeing. Vivi’s screen mirroring solution sets teachers free to roam the classroom and interact with students, while enabling students to instantly share their screens with the class or small groups for immediate feedback.
Vivi surveys more than 125,000 active users each quarter to inform ongoing feature and product development. Features include screen mirroring, digital signage, emergency broadcast, formative assessment and student health and wellbeing checks.
“We are absolutely delighted with the financial backing and support shown by RAC. It’s a real vote of confidence in the business and the impact our software has had on the education sector,” says Lior Rauchberger, Vivi Founder. “We look forward to a long-term partnership that will help us continue to transform student engagement by delivering our classroom management solution to educators around the world.”
Vivi is a new technology supplied by DIB Australia. In a nutshell, Vivi is a wireless presentation tool that enables teachers and students to share, display, annotate, capture, and save information in real time. Using Vivi, teachers can display whatever they want including videos, websites, presentations, and exercises. Students can then effortlessly capture what is being displayed and annotate the content with their own notes on their own device.
Vivi has achieved significant growth by regularly delivering new feature releases crowdsourced from the vast number of teachers and students who have integrated the solution into their daily routine. This has been achieved by creating a unique position in the market as the only solution of its kind dedicated solely to the education sector.
“We’re thrilled to be joining the RAC family, who are the ideal partner to help scale Vivi even faster,” says Natalie Mactier, Vivi CEO. “We have been overwhelmed by the reception from US schools and the capital raised in partnership with RAC will hyper accelerate our sales and marketing efforts with the goal to become the world’s leading classroom engagement platform.”
RAC invests in high-growth B2B software companies and provides funding and resources to support companies across their entire lifecycle. The organization is a part of The Riverside Company, a global private equity firm focused on the smaller end of the middle market, founded in 1988.
“Great software continues to enhance teaching methods and drive learning outcomes throughout the world. When combined with modern infrastructure it opens up an array of opportunities for exciting and innovative solutions. Vivi’s cloud-based technology is a great example of this by providing educators with tools to address a pressing need experienced in classrooms globally,” said Jim Toth from Riverside Acceleration Capital.
Below is a video overview of how Vivi is transforming classroom engagement.