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CommonLit

Literacy eLearning platform

CommonLit logo
101-200 employees
  • B2C
  • B2B
  • Education
  • Learning
  • SaaS
  • Social Impact
Capitol Hill, Washington, DC

Company mission

To close the opportunity gap in literacy instruction and ensure that all students have the reading, writing, communication, and collaboration skills needed to unlock their potential.

Led by a woman

Few candidates hear
back within 2 weeks

51% employee growth in 12 months

Our take

The US Department of Education has reported that over 50% of US adults over the age of 16 lack proficiency in literacy. This figure is remarkable, and with educators still struggling to fill gaps in education, many fear it will rise. So CommonLit’s tailored literacy lessons may prove more critical than ever.

CommonLit is a non-profit edtech platform that provides research based reading lessons and resources for all literacy levels, grades 3-12. The curriculum is in use by over 20 million registered teachers and students worldwide, and 88,000 schools in the US alone - the majority of them low-income. It’s localizing many of its materials into Spanish too, to tap into the substantial Latin-American markets.

This kind of global reach and deep market penetration is a real coup for the business, especially given the highly competitive nature of the US edtech scene. Lalilo, OgStar Reading, and Simbi are among the many for-profit edtech startups looking to address the same issue, but they will struggle to compete with CommonLit's comprehensive free offering. Plus, CommonLit's non-profit status could mean it’s less vulnerable to the looming threat of the edTech bubble bursting. New products such as a Chat GPT detector for teachers exemplifies how CommonLit is keeping its finger on the pulse so as to maintain relevancy.

Steph headshot

Steph

Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle

Benefits

  • Health
  • Dental
  • Vision
  • 401K
  • Commuter benefits
  • Company holidays
  • Parental leave
  • Sick leave
  • Personal leave

Funding (2 rounds)

Oct 2018

$3.5m

GRANT

Oct 2016

$3.9m

GRANT

Total funding: $7.4m

Leadership

Graduated with a Master's in Education from Harvard, and subsequently spent time as a middle school reading and languages teacher.