Finance

Education tech startup Instructure has raised $40 million

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CORRECTION: We initially reported that OpenView Venture Partners was participating in the $40M round. That was incorrect; OpenView is only a previous investor, and did not participate in this round. 

Instructure, the Salt Lake company providing cloud services to educators, has raised a $40 million round from a group of investors led by Insight Venture Partners, Business Insider has learned. 

Other investors in the round include EPIC Ventures, a Utah investor. The $40 million round brings the total capital behind Instructure to about $90 million, and, according to a source, Instructure will use its new round to push the company toward an IPO. 

Earlier, TechCrunch reported the news, without specifying the size of the round or the investors. 

With the new round, Instructure will launch Bridge, a source said, a cloud-based corporate learning platform. Moving into the enterprise market signifies the pursuit of a new vertical for the company. 

Instructure has built its Canvas learning management system since 2011, attracting 18 million students and teachers across more than 1,200 institutions. 

Instructure’s primary competition is Blackboard, which was acquired by private equity Providence Equity Partners in a $1.64 billion deal in 2011. 

The company did not respond to a request for comment. 

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Jon joined Business Insider in 2015 as senior finance writer. Before BI, Jon worked at TheStreet.com, writing columns and reporting in video. He worked as a senior editor at TheDeal.com, a subsidiary. Before that, he ran Thomson Reuters' peHUB.com, a daily newsletter and online private-equity and venture-capital publication. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, M&A Journal, mergermarket, and The Washington Examiner.