Dive Brief:
- Instructure, maker of the Canvas learning management system, went public Friday, raising $70 million from the sale of 4.4 million shares of its newly available stock.
- edSurge reports revenues have steadily grown in recent years, but Instructure is far from profitable, disclosing $44.4 million in revenue and a net loss of $41.4 million in 2014.
- As the first major initial public offering for an ed tech LMS company since Blackboard in 2004, Jeremy Friedman, CEO of Schoology, sees Instructure's early success on the market as indication the ed tech space has room for growth.
Dive Insight:
Instructure's stock opened at $16 per share and by the end of its first day on the public market, sold for $18 per share.
Instructure got its start in 2008, quickly pushing Canvas as a competitor for Blackboard, which had a near monopoly on the LMS market at its peak in 2006, with 90% market share. Most recently, Instructure has achieved 12% market share while Blackboard has dropped to 44%.
"We were the first learning management system technology to be in the cloud. That means we continuously innovate," Josh Coates, Instructure's CEO told TheStreet. Coates also cited the increased use of cloud-based software by K12 districts and universities flipping to cloud infrastructure as key sources of growth opportunities.
