Milwaukee startup Fiveable expands
Social learning platform adds services to become virtual hallway for high school students
A Milwaukee-based social learning platform is expanding beyond test prep to become a virtual hallway for millions of high school students.
Fiveable, with the help of a fresh round of financing, is growing. The company, which began with preparing high school students for tests to earn college credit through Advanced Placement programs, is adding more services to its platform.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic sent students to learn from home, Fiveable was thinking about making incremental changes within the existing education landscape, said Amanda DoAmaral, cofounder and CEO of Fiveable. DoAmaral’s team is making bigger moves now.
Remote learning during the pandemic exposed issues of connection and belonging for high school students that existed before classes moved online, DoAmaral said.
“There’s always this feeling that everyone (in education) has that what we’re doing isn’t working but I don’t know that we can re-create it, so how can I just inch my way toward the dream of educational equity,” DoAmaral said.
The pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement and the political landscape made DoAmaral and her team ask if they were really making the biggest impact possible.
“That kind of solidified our feeling that real change in this space needs to happen outside of the system,” DoAmaral said. “The students, the more that we invest in them, the more that those communities will be able to push for the bigger change that we need.”
The company recently closed a $10 million Series A round of financing. The funding was led by Union Square Ventures, followed by Owl Ventures and Progression Fund. In all, Fiveable has raised $14.2 million.
The platform is expanding. Fiveable has grown its content libraries and interactive study rooms for more subjects. The platform now supports 38 AP subjects. The team is adding resources for students to plan for life after high school.
Fiveable is adding wraparound supports to the platform. Those new additions include support for college entrance exams such as SAT and ACT, career exploration, finances, activism and other areas. Earlier this year, Fiveable acquired a virtual study platform called Hours.
“Building community is one of the most powerful drivers of student engagement,” said Ross Darwin, principal at Owl Ventures, in a news release. “Fiveable’s social learning platform is helping students who may be thousands of miles away from each other to build bonds around shared interests, leading to more active and vibrant learning.”
The platform’s build-out has been fueled by Fiveable’s user growth during the pandemic.
Fiveable started in 2018 with a focus on helping students study for Advanced Placement courses. Around 7 million high school students have used the platform in the last few years.
Just in 2021, the company said its user base increased four times. More than 400,000 students used Fiveable in September, according to Fiveable.
Fiveable is not focusing on profit at this point. Nothing on the platform is being monetized right now, DoAmaral said. The team’s main goal is growing users.
The company has about 20 full-time employees and plans to grow to 35 to 40 in the next year, DoAmaral said.
“It’s not just about test prep anymore,” said Tán Ho, co-founder and chief experience officer at Fiveable. “Yes, that’s what’s gotten us here. But the next state is care for the whole student, growth for the whole student, all of these holistic ways that we can support students.”
DoAmaral describes the expanded platform as a “virtual global hallway.”
The Fiveable platform has three parts: content, community spaces on Discord and then study rooms on Hours. The goal with the new financing is to make the Fiveable ecosystem more cohesive and make more students aware of all the ways it offers support, DoAmaral said.
What makes you believe in the vision you have for Fiveable?
DoAmaral: We are interacting with students every day. When we hear things from students that are just like,
Amanda DoAmaral, founder of Fiveable, and Tan Ho, co-founder and chief experience officer, pose for a portrait in the Deer District in Milwaukee. The social learning platform for Milwaukee-based high school students raised $10 million. you know, I felt like I was the only student at my school who cared about this interest. I felt like I’m the only student at my school who is a first-generation you know college-goer. I’m the only Black student in my school and I didn’t know who to experience these global trends with. I don’t know who to talk to. And they talk about those things and they always talk about the fact that in the Fiveable community, I’m not the only one. I have other students that I’m connecting with. I’m part of this group that we’re experiencing this thing together. That is what gives us the drive everyday. Being 16 is hard always, but to hear from a student that’s like I feel like I just don’t feel alone. I feel like I can do things. I see myself in these future plans. I see myself with my peers. That to me is everything.
What your best advice for entrepreneurs?
DoAmaral: You don’t need permission. You just need to have a vision for what you are building and to be clear on the problems that you’re solving and just do it. That’s a conversation that I have with a lot of young founders, early founders, career changers, people who see these problems and I think there’s been such a lack of investment in certain communities that clearly have problems identified. But I think Tan and I were just like we’re not going to let anyone tell us no. There’s just no way. People who don’t want to invest or don’t want to support the journey, it’s their loss. At a certain point we’re going to keep moving forward and over time hearing now from people who told us no early on and are regretting their decisions is always a fun moment. But it’s just having the deep conviction in what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. And just making it happen.
“Fiveable’s social learning platform is helping students who may be thousands of miles away from each other to build bonds around shared interests, leading to more active and vibrant learning.”
principal at Owl Ventures