Today is a big day for our team.
SlideRule is now Springboard.
When we founded the company in 2013, our goal was to create tools to enable lifelong learners to build new skills and advance your careers. We started by organizing existing online courseware through search and curated learning paths. While these tools were popular, many of you told us you needed more support.
Last year, based on feedback from our community, we added courses with mentorship from industry experts. Like everything we do at the company, this started as an experiment — to understand how online education can be more effective through personalization, mentorship and community.
Over the past year, it’s been amazing to see what a difference our mentored courses have made. Our community of mentors has grown ten-fold to include over a hundred Data Scientists and UX Designers from some of the world’s best companies. With their support, we’ve been able to bring mentor-led education to nearly 1,000 students, who inspire us with their accomplishments.
With the success of our mentored offerings and our thriving community of students, mentors and alums, we realized that we’re no longer just a set of tools for education — we’ve slowly but surely grown into a school, albeit a non-traditional one. To mark this transition, we felt that our name should reflect our expanded responsibility: to go all the way and provide our students with all the support they need for that career leap. To be a springboard for your career.
Today, we’re also announcing our $1.7M fundraise from some wonderful investors, including 500 Startups, Allen Blue (co-founder of LinkedIn), John Katzman (founder of Princeton Review and 2U), Naveen Tewari and Amit Gupta (founders of InMobi), Kartik Hosanagar (Wharton professor), Greg Badros (former VP of Product at Facebook), and a handful of other amazing individuals. We are thrilled that these amazing folks have joined us in our mission.
This is just the beginning. We are on a mission to make high-quality education accessible to everyone in the world. We have some great things planned, and we’re excited about the future.
If you have been part of our community as a learner, a mentor or an alum: thank you for being part of the family! If you are just learning about us, welcome to Springboard — it’s going to be a great ride!
If you have any questions, please reach out.
— Parul, Gautam, and the Springboard team
