Newsela Valuation, Funding & Investors

Newsela is valued at $1B as of February 2021.

Last Newsela valuation

$1B

Series D · Feb 2021

Last Newsela funding round

$100M

Series D · Feb 2021

Cumulative funding Newsela raised

$172M

across 5 funding rounds

Key investors in Newsela

  • Kapor Capital
  • Owl Ventures
  • Kleiner Perkins
  • TCV
  • Reach Capital
  • Knight Enterprise Fund

Newsela Overview

About Newsela

Newsela is an edtech company that adapts real-time articles from trusted publishers into multilevel reading materials for classrooms. New York-headquartered and founded in 2013, it serves millions of students across US schools with content in ELA, science, and social studies. The platform tracks reading progress and comprehension at newsela.com.


Founded

2013

HQ

United StatesNew York City, NY

Status

Privately held

Customer focus

B2B

Revenue model

Subscription

Valuation

$1B (Feb 2021)

Newsela Valuation

Newsela is currently valued at $1B, based on its Series D in February 2021.

The $100M round was led by Putnam Premier IT and TCV, with participation from Tao Capital Partners, Reach Capital, Waycross Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Owl Ventures and 1 other investor.

Newsela valuation by funding round

Newsela valuation by funding round
DateStageValuation
Feb 2021Series D$1B

Newsela Funding History

Newsela has raised a total of $172M across 5 funding rounds.

Newsela's first fundraising round was a $1M seed round in October 2013. The most recent completed round was a $100M Series D in February 2021.

Newsela funding rounds

Newsela funding rounds
DateStageInvestorsRaisedValuationDeal Summary
Feb 2021Series DPutnam Premier IT (lead); TCV (lead); Tao Capital Partners; Reach Capital; Waycross Ventures; Kleiner Perkins; Owl Ventures; Chan Zuckerberg Initiative$100M$1BNewsela is a K-12 instructional content platform providing digital-first SaaS solutions to replace traditional textbooks in classrooms. Founded in 2013, the company had reached 37 million registered students and 2.5 million registered teachers across 90% of U.S. schools by early 2021. The platform offers personalized, leveled content with analytics capabilities, priced between $6 to $14 per student annually, significantly undercutting traditional textbooks at $20 to $40 per student. In February 2021, Newsela announced a $100 million Series D funding round led by Franklin Templeton and existing investor TCV, with participation from Owl Ventures, Tao Capital Partners, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and Waycross Ventures. The round valued the company at $1 billion, achieving unicorn status. The funding brought total capital raised to $173 million across six rounds since the 2013 seed round. Newsela reported strong momentum with 2020 annual recurring revenue growing 81% over 2019, and new bookings surging 115%, metrics that rivaled top-performing public SaaS companies. The company did not disclose absolute revenue figures but indicated it was pursuing expansion of content formats, feature development, and potential acquisitions to accelerate growth in the digital-first K-12 market.
Mar 2019Series CTCV (lead)$50M-Newsela is an edtech platform that provides instructional content, rewriting news articles, historical speeches, and scientific papers at different reading levels to enhance student comprehension and engagement. It partners with publishers like National Geographic and the Washington Post, offering a software app for K-12 teachers and students as an alternative to traditional textbooks. In March 2019, Newsela raised $50 million in a Series C round led by TCV, bringing total funding to approximately $72 million at that time, with previous investors including Kleiner Perkins, Owl Ventures, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and others. TCV's Woody Marshall joined the board, and the funds were intended to enhance platform capabilities, expand the user base, and extend accessibility for students, teachers, and administrators. At that time, the platform served 20 million students and 1.8 million teachers. TCV, known for investments in edtech like Varsity Tutors and consumer internet giants such as Netflix and Airbnb, was attracted to Newsela's impact on learning outcomes and user engagement. Later developments include a February 2021 Series D round of $100 million led by Franklin Templeton and TCV, achieving a $1 billion valuation and unicorn status, with total funding exceeding $172 million.
Oct 2015Series BKleiner Perkins (lead); Reach Capital; Kapor Capital; Owl Ventures; Chan Zuckerberg Initiative; Knight Enterprise Fund; WomensVCFund$15M-Newsela raised $15 million in a Series B funding round in October 2015 led by Kleiner Perkins, which invested $10 million. Other participants included Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (then Zuckerberg Education Ventures), Knight Enterprise Fund (Knight Foundation), Owl Ventures, Reach Capital, and Women’s Venture Capital Fund. The funds were intended to accelerate machine learning capabilities, expand content, and increase reach to more teachers, students, and school districts. This brought total funding to over $21 million following prior seed and Series A rounds. Newsela operates a publishing platform that personalizes daily news articles at different reading levels to promote literacy and engage K-12 students with Common Core-aligned quizzes. At the time, it had published over 1,600 articles and 30,000 quiz questions, reaching users in 70% of U.S. public schools, four million students, and 400,000 teachers worldwide.
Sep 2014Series AOwl Ventures (lead); Kapor Capital; Cambridge Information Group; Knight Enterprise Fund; NewSchools Venture Fund$6M-Newsela is an education technology company providing a nonfiction reading platform that transforms K-12 literacy by offering current events stories rewritten at different Lexile levels for grades 3 through high school, with quizzes to test understanding. Basic features were available for free as of 2014. The platform attracted more than 20,000 new teachers and students per school day and saw 20,000 user registrations a day (2,000 teachers and 18,000 students) at the start of the 2014-15 school year. Newsela raised $4.1 million in a Series A round in September 2014 led by Owl Ventures, with participation from Knight Enterprise Fund, Cambridge Information Group, and prior seed investors NewSchools Venture Fund and Kapor Capital. This followed a $1.2 million seed round in October 2013 from Kapor Capital and NewSchools Venture Fund, bringing total funding to $5.6 million including a $100K Gates Foundation grant. Funds were used to expand content in sports and science, produce curriculum materials, add student feedback features, and analyze usage for better tools. Some sources reference a $6 million Series A in September 2014, but primary announcements confirm $4.1 million.
Oct 2013SeedKapor Capital (lead); NewSchools Venture Fund (lead); Joannie Fischer; Issac Taylor; Walter Winshall; Kaplan Ventures; Silicon Badia; David Fischer; Techstars; Jennifer Coogan; Brigette Lau; Kaplan EdTech Accelerator$1M--

Who has invested in Newsela?

23 investors have backed Newsela across its funding rounds, including Kapor Capital, Owl Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, TCV, Reach Capital and Knight Enterprise Fund.

Lead investors include Putnam Premier IT, TCV, Kleiner Perkins, Owl Ventures, Kapor Capital and 1 other investor.


Newsela Investors

Investors in Newsela by funding rounds participated
InvestorHQRoundsRoleFirst check
Kapor CapitalUnited StatesSan Francisco, CA3LeadOct 2013
Owl VenturesUnited StatesSan Francisco, CA3LeadSep 2014
Reach CapitalUnited StatesSan Francisco, CA2ParticipantOct 2015
Kleiner PerkinsUnited StatesSan Francisco, CA2LeadOct 2015
Chan Zuckerberg InitiativeUnited StatesSan Francisco, CA2ParticipantOct 2015
TCVUnited StatesSan Francisco, CA2LeadMar 2019
Knight Enterprise FundUnited StatesUnited States2ParticipantSep 2014
NewSchools Venture FundUnited StatesUnited States2LeadOct 2013
Tao Capital PartnersUnited StatesSan Francisco, CA1ParticipantFeb 2021
Putnam Premier ITUnited StatesUnited States1LeadFeb 2021
Waycross VenturesUnited StatesSan Francisco, CA1ParticipantFeb 2021
Joannie Fischer--1ParticipantOct 2013
Cambridge Information GroupUnited StatesNew York City, NY1ParticipantSep 2014

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Benchmark 350K+ Funding Rounds and Disclosed VC Valuation Multiples

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Acquisitions by Newsela

Newsela has acquired 5 companies to date.

Last acquisition by Newsela was on March 3rd 2026. Newsela acquired EveryDay Labs for undisclosed valuation.


Latest Acquisitions by Newsela

EveryDay Labs
Schoolytics
Generation Genius
Formative
Description
EveryDay Labs is a platform combining behavioral science, data analytics, and family outreach to combat chronic student absenteeism. Deployed districtwide, it automates personalized interventions, attendance tracking, and educator tools. US-based via everydaylabs.com, it partners with school districts for improved student engagement.
Schoolytics is a K-12 analytics platform using AI to process student data from sources like Google Classroom and Clever. It provides dashboards for monitoring growth, attendance, and engagement in over 1,000 U.S. schools, integrating with 50+ edtech tools for actionable insights.
Generation Genius is a public benefit corporation producing NGSS-aligned science videos for grades K-8, distributed through partnerships with the National Science Teaching Association. Filmed in Los Angeles studios, its library covers 100 percent of Next Generation Science Standards with 120 videos paired with printable worksheets, quizzes, and hands-on experiments on topics from ecosystems to physics. Used in over 10,000 schools across all 50 states, the platform adds math content for grades K-5 and plans engineering modules.
Formative is an education technology platform providing real-time formative assessments for K-12 classrooms. Teachers assign interactive quizzes, exit tickets, and projects via goformative.com, receiving instant analytics on student responses across devices. San Francisco-headquartered since 2014, it supports standards-aligned content in math, science, and ELA, integrating with Google Classroom and Canvas LMS. Over 5 million students and 100,000 teachers use it monthly in districts including Los Angeles Unified and Chicago Public Schools, enabling data-driven interventions during lessons.
HQ CountryUnited StatesUnited StatesUnited StatesUnited States
HQ City
San Francisco, CA
Washington, DC
Los Angeles, CA
Los Angeles, CA
Deal Date3 Mar 202620 Jan 20265 Feb 202527 Jun 2023
Valuationundisclosedundisclosed$100Mundisclosed
EV/Revenue
EV/EBITDA

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Newsela Competitors

Newsela competitors include listed companies like Coursera and Youdao, and private ones like Hujiang Education Technologies, Knowbox, Quizlet and LEAD.

Public and private companies comparable to Newsela
CompanyHQStatusRevenueEBITDAValuationRevenue Multiple
Hujiang Education TechnologiesChinaShanghaiPrivate$80M-$1B12.5x
KnowboxChinaBeijingPrivate--$1B-
QuizletUnited StatesSan Francisco, CAPrivate--$1B-
LEADIndiaMumbaiPrivate--$1.1B-
CourseraUnited StatesUnited StatesPublicly listed$758M($49M)$1.4B0.3x
YoudaoChinaChinaPublicly listed$881M$29M$1.7B2.0x

Newsela Public Comps

Newsela is still privately-owned, but its public comps include American Public Education, Afya, Coursera, Docebo, Jiangsu Chuanzhiboke, Gaotu Techedu, Qibu, Youdao, MegaStudyEdu and I-Scream Media.

Last FYEV/RevenueEV/EBITDA
RevenueEBITDALast FYLTM2027ELast FYLTM2027E
American Public Education$649M$64M1.1x1.1x11.6x7.8x
Afya$719M$289M2.3x2.2x5.6x5.0x
Coursera$758M($49M)0.5x0.3x(7.7x)2.7x
Docebo$243M$26M2.6x2.4x24.8x12.3x
Jiangsu Chuanzhiboke$57M($7M)8.9x6.3x(67.8x)-
Gaotu Techedu$917M($38M)0.2x0.2x(4.3x)(33.7x)
Qibu$24M($16M)15.3x-(23.0x)-
Youdao$881M$29M2.1x2.0x63.1x33.8x

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Common questions about Newsela

When was Newsela founded?Newsela was founded in 2013.
Where is Newsela headquartered?Newsela is headquartered in New York City, NY, United States.
Is Newsela publicly listed?No, Newsela is a private, VC-backed company.
What is Newsela's valuation?Newsela was last valued at $1B in its Series D in February 2021.
How much funding has Newsela raised?Newsela has raised $172M across 5 funding rounds.
What was Newsela's last funding round?Newsela's last funding round was a $100M Series D in February 2021, led by Putnam Premier IT and TCV.
Who are Newsela's investors?Newsela's investors include Kapor Capital, Owl Ventures, Reach Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, TCV, Knight Enterprise Fund, NewSchools Venture Fund, Tao Capital Partners, Putnam Premier IT and 13 others.
Which companies are comparable to Newsela?Companies comparable to Newsela include Hujiang Education Technologies, Knowbox, Quizlet, LEAD, Coursera and Youdao.
How many companies has Newsela acquired?Newsela has acquired 5 companies, including EveryDay Labs, Schoolytics, Generation Genius, Formative and HapYak Interactive Video.
What was the largest acquisition by Newsela?The $100M acquisition of Generation Genius in February 2025 is the largest acquisition Newsela has made to date.

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