Engrade
Acquired5 known investors
Engrade was a K-12 online gradebook, learning management and assessment platform acquired by McGraw-Hill Education in 2014.
Also known as Engrade Inc.
Investors · 5
Also in the syndicate · 1
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Engrade was an educational technology company providing an online learning management system and educational assessment products to K-12 school districts. Its original and flagship product was a web-based gradebook that let teachers create classes, define grading scales and categories, enter rosters, record assignments and attendance, run online quizzes with results posted automatically to the gradebook, host class discussions and manage calendars; students received individual logins to view grades, join discussions and take quizzes.
After being rebuilt as a business, Engrade expanded into an enterprise platform organized around four product groups: Corebook, a gradebook designed for standards-based grading and Common Core alignment; Teach, a school-wide content management system integrating third-party content providers; Assess, a PARCC- and SBAC-aligned student assessment tool; and Improve, which processes data from Engrade and third-party tools into district-level reports on student performance. Enterprise features added for districts included attendance, discipline and parent-teacher conference tracking, standardized test score analysis, score messaging, report card printing, parent email and SMS alerts, admin-level reporting, and an API for integrating existing school software. The platform provided single sign-on across a district's software, including third-party applications and open educational resources, so that students could log in once to use multiple tools and content sources while teachers and administrators tracked progress from a single dashboard.
Founding story
Bri Holt built the original Engrade gradebook in 2003 while a high school student, after hearing classmates and teachers complain that there was no quick, easy way to view grades online. The tool found early users among teachers and classmates, but adoption was modest and Holt moved on after graduating; the product kept accumulating teacher users on its own until 2010, when he returned to develop it full-time and turn it into a company.
Business model
Engrade operated a freemium software-as-a-service model: teachers could create free gradebook accounts individually, while school districts purchased 'Pro' accounts, with administrators requesting quotes for district-wide deployment. Following its 2010 relaunch as a business, the company shifted from a single free teacher tool toward selling an enterprise education platform to schools and districts.
Revenue came from paid Pro subscriptions sold to schools and districts, quoted to administrators, alongside a free tier for individual teachers.
Traction
Engrade reported roughly 4.5 million users at the time of its 2014 acquisition, ranked in the top 5,000 US websites as of March 2015, and operated with a team of six at the time of the acquisition.
Latest developments
McGraw-Hill Education completed its acquisition of Engrade in early 2014, folding the platform into its K-12 digital instruction and assessment portfolio alongside its earlier purchase of the ALEKS Corporation. The Engrade service was subsequently discontinued on June 30, 2019, with districts transitioning off the platform.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history, risks & controversies
Market position
Engrade competed in the K-12 learning management and gradebook market against products including Schoology, Canvas, itslearning and Google Classroom. Its gradebook was described as among the most widely used online tools of its kind, and the site ranked in the top 5,000 US websites as of March 2015; commentary on the company notes it faced pressure from better-funded rivals and struggled to convert broad teacher adoption into durable institutional purchasing.
Engrade positioned itself as an open, centralized platform rather than a standalone gradebook, using an API to integrate existing school systems and third-party content and to consolidate fragmented student data — grades, test scores and learning activity — into one place accessible to teachers, students, parents and third parties through single sign-on. Its long-standing free teacher gradebook provided a large installed base that supported district-level expansion.
Technology
A cloud-based, single sign-on platform unifying district software, third-party applications and open educational resources, with an API for integrating existing school systems, data aggregation across grading, assessment and learning tools, and real-time progress monitoring and district-level reporting.
Go-to-market
Growth began bottom-up and organically with individual teachers adopting the free gradebook and acting as advocates, then moved to top-down enterprise sales of paid district-wide deployments after 2010, supported by feature sets and reporting aimed at school and district administrators.
K-12 teachers, school administrators and school districts in the United States, along with the students and parents who accessed grades, assignments and alerts through the platform.
Geography
Engrade was a United States company serving K-12 school districts, with offices reported in Santa Monica, California; Wikipedia categorizes it among software companies based in California.
History
Engrade was launched in 2003 as an online gradebook built by high school student Bri Holt for his own school. After Holt graduated and moved on to other work, the product continued to attract teachers organically. By 2010, with a sizeable user base, Holt returned to the product full-time, incorporated it as a business and expanded its functionality into an enterprise platform for schools. The company raised roughly $3 million in 2012 and a $5 million Series B in July 2013, for about $8 million total across two rounds. In February 2014 McGraw-Hill Education acquired Engrade, with TechCrunch reporting a price of approximately $50 million. The service was discontinued on June 30, 2019.
Risks & controversies
Retrospective analysis of the company argues that Engrade built a product teachers wanted but that schools did not prioritize purchasing, relied on organic adoption rather than measured retention, and faced growing competition from alternatives such as Google Classroom and Canvas; after the McGraw-Hill acquisition, integration with the publisher's textbook distribution network did not deliver the expected leverage and the service was shut down in 2019.
Compiled by commissioned research from 7 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Timeline · 4
launches, deals, and filingsMcGraw-Hill Education announced the acquisition of Engrade; terms were undisclosed in the press release, while TechCrunch reported the price was around $50 million.
$50M source ↗
Round led/joined by Javelin Venture Partners, Samsung Ventures and others to help schools unify learning data and systems in one platform; brought total raised to $8 million.
$5M source ↗
VentureBeat reported a $3 million raise for the gradebook software built by its founder as a high school student a decade earlier.
$3M source ↗
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
In the news
▸Research sources · 7
primary sources listed
- Engrade - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org · web
7 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Engrade do?
- Engrade was a K-12 online gradebook, learning management and assessment platform acquired by McGraw-Hill Education in 2014.
- Who are Engrade's investors?
- Engrade's investors include Expansion Venture Capital, Javelin Venture Partners, Kapor Capital, New Ground Ventures.