Nick Grandy is the co-founder of Outschool, a marketplace of unique online classes from hundreds of independent teachers where classes are conducted via group video chat.
Education
Nick Grandy was a graduate from Harvard University with an AB in Astronomy and Astrophysics in 2000, and a Master of Science in Computer Science at the University of Oxford in 2007.
Early career
In 2001, Grandy worked as a Software Developer at Redshift Technologies until 2003. As a Software Developer, Grandy was responsible for software development and project management at a boutique technology consulting company. In 2003, Grandy worked as a Physics Teacher for the 9th grader and AP level at The Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn for two years.
In 2005, Grandy served as a Software Developer at the Center for Neuroscience, Rutgers University. Grandy left the firm after one year to pursue his Master’s degree. In 2008, Grandy and Andrew Dudley co-founded Wundrbar, a company in the search/information retrieval space and funded by Y Combinator. The concept is reminiscent of YubNub, but Wundrbar strived to engage to a bigger audience and to incorporate functionality that supports people control their online accounts in addition to searching the web. Wundrbar only raised one round of funding in January 2008. Unfortunately, the startup didn’t work well, and after about a year, they had to shut down the company.
In 2009, Grandy became the Lead Engineer at Airbnb, where he was responsible for spanning product, engineering, and operations. Grandy served the company until 2012. Before co-founding Outschool, Grandy was a Product Manager at Clever Inc. in 2014. Grandy made ed-tech easier for schools and developers.
Outschool
In 2015, Grandy co-founded Outschool, a marketplace of live online classes for kids, along with Amir Nathoo and Mikhail Seregine. Outschool, Inc. runs an online platform that allows users to find and book in-person learning activities for kids. Its platform enables parents to book and pay for activities, discover upcoming local activities, find other parents to join them, suggest new interest and request times, get notified of new task, and have hands-on support; and activity leaders to create online listings, reach various parents, split the class cost among parents, manage enrollments and payments, and have hands-on support.
Parents use Outschool in many ways to improve their children’s education to fill in gaps in their knowledge, stimulate their learning in core subjects, or pursue interests in topics that aren’t included in regular schools. The extent of classes offered provides the students the opportunity to make their decisions and lets them study traditional subjects in new and exciting ways.
Outschool’s marketplace strategy provides the online destination to draw an extensive range of independent teachers, several of whom have previously taught or also teach in public schools. Outschool teachers may be certified teachers, scientists, artists, or other adults with interest or expertise to share.
Classes engage in small groups over live video chat. Video chat interaction during classes makes learning much more social and collaborative than other online learning alternatives. The Outschool’s fall classes include multi-week, semester-long, and one-time options across fundamental subject areas, from core courses to advanced placement (AP) and unique approaches.
In August 2017, Outschool announced its current fall 2017 offerings, providing families the experience to pick their educational tracks from more than 1,000 classes, varying from as little as $5 for a one-time class to a semester-long course for hundreds of dollars.
Funding rounds
In March 2016, Outschool raised $120,000 in a seed round, led by Y Combinator with the participation from FundersClub. In June 2017, Outschool raised $1.4 million in another seed round, co-led by Sesame Workshop and Collaborative Fund. Existing investors include Y Combinator and FundersClub, has also participated in this round. Other investors in this round include Spectrum 28 Capital, SV Angel, Learn Capital and Caterina Fake.
In May 2019, Outschool raised $8.5 million in a Series A round, co-led by Union Square Ventures and Reach Capital, with the participation from Jennifer Carolan. With this funding, Outschool will continue to build an inspirational learning platform that addresses the challenges and opportunities for kids’ education in the twenty-first century.
Outschool has raised a total of $10 million in funding and is funded by 11 investors. Outschool has $2 million in estimated revenue annually. Outschool competes with IXL Learning, TenMarks Education, and Khan Academy.
Personal investment
Nick Grandy invested in Hoodline on November 17, 2015. This investment – Seed Round – Hoodline – was valued at $1.6 million.