FreshGrade

FreshGrade, established in 2011, offers a digital portfolio and communication platform tailored for the Pre-K to 12th-grade education market. The company was founded by Lane Merrifield, Steve Wandler, and Mark Payne. The founders brought significant entrepreneurial experience; Merrifield previously co-founded the children's social gaming platform Club Penguin, which was sold to Disney, and Wandler founded YourTechOnline.com, which was later acquired. This background in creating successful user-centric technology platforms informed FreshGrade's development.

The business operates as a platform-based service for teachers, school districts, parents, and students. Its core function is to provide a comprehensive view of a student's educational journey, shifting the focus from final grades to the learning process itself. Teachers and students can upload various forms of evidence of learning, including photos, videos, audio recordings, and notes, into an online portfolio. The platform enables educators to align these artifacts with learning objectives and assessments, making it easier to track progress and identify areas where students may need support. For parents, it opens a transparent window into the classroom, facilitating engagement through a familiar newsfeed-style format.

The company's revenue model was supported by venture capital funding, raising \$4.3 million in a seed round in 2014 and \$11.6 million in a Series A round in 2016. A key milestone in the company's history was its acquisition in April 2021 by Higher Ground Education, a network of schools dedicated to Montessori education. This acquisition integrated FreshGrade's technology and team into Higher Ground's ecosystem, aiming to enhance its educational offerings by leveraging the platform's ability to track both qualitative and quantitative learning outcomes. At the time of the acquisition, the platform had achieved significant user adoption, with over 18 million portfolios created, and was actively used by 85,000 teachers and 1.8 million parents.

Keywords: edtech, digital portfolio, K-12 education, assessment platform, parent engagement, student learning, learning evidence, classroom communication, education technology, Montessori education