Education apps win The Mill’s pitch competition
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Two education technology apps banked investments this fall at The Mill’s Crossroads Pitch Competition.
Pocket, a band and orchestra catalog and teaching platform, was awarded $10,000 in pre-seed funding from the not-for-profit startup accelerator’s Flywheel Fund. Integrate School, a curriculum and lesson building software, was the seed winner and received $20,000.
Both platforms look to enhance student outcomes and improve institutional organization and lesson content.
“This fall’s competitors were truly outstanding,” said Andy Lehman, head of accelerator programming at The Mills, in a news release. “We couldn’t be happier with these two worthy winners, who’ve founded companies with great potential not just for growth and investors, but with great potential to make a positive impact on students and communities.”
Pocket is an app that allows beginning band and orchestra instructors access to a catalog of music and lesson plans. A big piece of the app is a collection of pacing guides for Black gospel music, which curates teaching material of a largely under-represented genre. Founder Charlie Edmonds said in her pitch that Black gospel music has had a significant influence on other genres and introducing it into her curriculum tripled band enrollment.
The app will pilot in two schools this fall, and Edmonds hopes to have a minimum viable product complete by August 2024.
“The process gifted me the ability to learn from amazing judges and participants, immerse myself in the thriving entrepreneurship community in southern Indiana, and share my world of Pocket Methods, LLC with a wide audience,” Edmonds said. “With the pre-seed funding from Crossroads, I am now accelerating my goals for development, piloting in schools, and gaining much needed legal access. I am filled with gratitude for this opportunity.”
Seed winner Integrate School aims to streamline the evaluation of student learning outcomes and standards through a lesson-planning platform that connects to the larger curriculum and state standards. Through the use of one platform, co-founder and CEO Kevin Celisca said in his pitch that it can be used by teacher and administration to ensure classrooms are on track and inequities are limited.
Integrate School is linked with class rosters, a repository of state and national learning standards and OpenAI for lesson generation aligning with standards. It uses a B2B SaaS model and has a ESSA / ESSER level 4 approval from third-party evaluator Learn Platform, allowing schools to purchase the software through their emergency funds.
“The reason this is important to me is I was a victim of zip code discrimination.” Celisca said, crediting his fourth-grade teacher. “She worked with me after school every day and customized a lesson plan to help me excel academically, to eventually go to college and study abroad.”
The program has site license pricing starting at $5,000, and the startup’s average contract value is about $50,000, The Mill said.