CourseStorm raises $760K, sees fast growth in education software
Courtesy / CourseStorm Inc.
Brian Rahill (left), CEO, and Matt James, head of product and software developer, co-founded CourseStorm Inc. of Orono, which raised $760,000 for their cloud-based software for continuing informal learning like adult education.
CourseStorm Inc., an Orono-based company that provides cloud-based software to help informal educational programs like after-school learning, adult education and workforce development, has raised a total of $760,000 in equity, with Maine Venture Fund as the lead investor.
“Our software helps get the list of classes online and helps people easily find classes and register online,” Brian Rahill, CEO and co-founder along with head of product and software developer Matt James, told Mainebiz.
Rahill said the company plans to use the money to grow to the next level, and is examining options for accelerator programs that could help it with sales, marketing and reaching more customers.
The company has three employees now, but Rahill said the new money, to be applied to sales and marketing efforts both on the ground and for digital marketing, will result in some new hires.
CourseStorm, founded in 2012, raised a total of $710,000 as of Oct. 14, but got another $50,000 this week to bring the total to $760,000. Rahill said there was enough interest to keep the investment window open for the next 60 days to raise a total of $1 million. The SEC filing was made late Wednesday.
Before this investment, the company was bootstrapped to prove its concept before going out to the financing community. Other investors include individuals within Maine Angels, the Bangor Angels (which invest as a group), equity from the Maine Technology Institute and outside individuals in other states.
Aiding less formal learning
CourseStorm was spun out of Rahill’s earlier company, RainStorm Consulting, a web-development firm that made custom websites for the education market. CourseStorm’s software is turnkey and cloud-based. Other software available in the market is for formal educational institutions like colleges, he said, but CourseStorm is targeting the small-to-medium-sized informal education market, where he said there is no competition. The software, also called CourseStorm, can be used by K-12 up to adult programs.
His business model is taking 7% of the transaction fee on each customer website, for example, 7% of the amount each student would pay for a course. Rahill said that averages to about $3 per registration. There also are volume-based discounts.
A recent client is the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where the program is being used to handle course data for child and family art classes. Other customers are adult education organizations throughout Maine, MaineHealth and MaineGeneral, the latter two of which use the software for all of their health education classes, Rahill said.
He expects less than $1 million in revenue this year, but the company is growing quickly so that amount is 4.5-times that of 2015 revenue.
“With this new money, we could grow exponentially,” he said.
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