Tract, an online educational community, has raised $7 million in venture capital. The round was led by NEA, with participation from Bill Tai (Sangha Capital/ACTAI), Anne Wojcicki (23&Me), Susan Wojcicki (YouTube), Marc Pincus (Zynga), and Dan Rosensweig (Chegg). The cash will be used to further the tract’s goal of inspiring every child to be an impactful creator.
Celebrity mom and California teacher of the year, Esther Wojcicki, and her former student and Uber CEO, Ari Memar, founded the company in 2020 after understanding the importance of the 21st-century skills gap, mental health crisis, and teacher shortage.
Tract’s safe, supervised online community assists children in learning, creating, sharing, and educating through video. Tract welcomed 30,000 users in its first year, with 5,000+ courses contributed, generating 100,000+ projects.
The tract may be easily implemented into any classroom to make any topic more interesting, relevant in the real world, and kid-centric.
“The number one thing that young people want to be is a TikTok or YouTube creator.” They want to be makers so that they may be creative, renowned and teach others.
“By combining the fun, creative process of generating films with research-backed educational paradigms like project-based learning and peer instruction, every teacher can enhance student outcomes while saving time on lesson planning,” stated Ari Memar, co-founder and CEO.
“Today’s youngsters have a higher level of technical literacy than any previous generation.” With more than 30% of children possessing a smartphone by the age of eight, children are using adult platforms such as YouTube and TikTok, but there is still a lack of secure and interesting digital locations that fulfill their requirements “NEA partner Ann Bordetsky stated.
“Tract is a platform that enables school-age children to be social learners, builders, and creators both within and outside of the classroom.” We’re thrilled to be collaborating with Ari and Esther on this cause.”
