A successful exit for New Markets earlier this year, Moodlerooms is an ideal example of our investment philosophy and process. Our involvement began in 2005.
Moodlerooms is a leading provider of a learning management system built on the Moodle platform, an open source course management software system designed to help educators create quality online courses. Moodle has been widely adopted by universities, schools, companies and independent teachers, with over 30 million users in 211 countries.
New Markets’ Frank Bonsal became an advisor and board member to Moodlerooms in its earliest days, and made an angel investment in 2006. Even prior to investing, New Markets’ team engaged in customer and strategic partner introductions, fund raising, identification of a new CEO and restructuring to prepare Moodlerooms for its first institutional round.
In 2010, New Markets led a Series A investment of $7 million, with syndicate partners Kaplan Ventures and Longworth Venture Partners, and Mark Grovic joined the board of directors.
Moodlerooms’ revenue quickly accelerated as they signed contracts with significant partners and customers, including Houston Community College with 72,000 students. Recruiting continued at the senior management level, as Moodlerooms hired the key founders of Angel Learning. The company also expanded mobile platforms to Android and Blackberry.
Blackboard acquired Moodlerooms in 2012 together with another Moodle Partner, NetSpot and hired the leader of another open source community, Sakai, to form the basis of their Open Source Services group in March of this year. The strategic acquisition expanded Blackboard’s offerings to include open source alternatives providing customers with choices that were previously unavailable.