Instructure, Inc. is an
educational technology
Educational technology (commonly abbreviated as edutech, or edtech) is the combined use of computer hardware, software, and educational theory and practice to facilitate learning. When referred to with its abbreviation, edtech, it often refer ...
company based in
Salt Lake City, Utah
Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...
,
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. It is the developer and publisher of Canvas, a web-based
learning management system
A learning management system (LMS) is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting, automation, and delivery of educational courses, training programs, materials or learning and development programs. The learni ...
(LMS), and MasteryConnect, an assessment management system. The company is owned by
private-equity firm
A private equity firm is an investment management company that provides financial backing and makes investments in the private equity of startup or operating companies through a variety of loosely affiliated investment strategies including leve ...
Thoma Bravo
Thoma Bravo, LP, is an American private equity and growth capital firm with offices in San Francisco, Chicago and Miami. It is known for being particularly active in acquiring software companies and has over $114 billion in assets under manage ...
.
History
Founded in 2008 by two BYU graduate students, Brian Whitmer and Devlin Daley, Instructure's initial funding came from
Mozy
Mozy () was an online backup service for both Windows and macOS users. Linux's support was made available in Q3, 2014. In 2007 Mozy was acquired by EMC, and in 2013 Mozy was included in the EMC Backup Recovery Systems division's product list.
O ...
founder Josh Coates, who served as Instructure's CEO from 2010 to 2018 and chairman of the board through 2020, as well as from Epic Ventures.
In December 2010, the
Utah Education Network
The Utah Education Network (UEN) is a broadband and digital broadcast network serving public education, higher education, applied technology campuses, libraries, and public charter schools throughout the state of Utah. The Network facilitates inte ...
(UEN), which represents a number of Utah colleges and universities, announced that Instructure would be replacing
Blackboard
A blackboard (also known as a chalkboard) is a reusable writing surface on which text or drawings are made with sticks of calcium sulphate or calcium carbonate, known, when used for this purpose, as chalk. Blackboards were originally made of ...
as their preferred learning management system supplier. By January 2013, Instructure's platform was in-use by more than 300 colleges, universities, and K-12 districts; the company's customer base had increased to 9 million users by the end of 2013.
In February 2011, Instructure announced they were making their flagship product, Canvas, freely available under an
Affero General Public License
The Affero General Public License (Affero GPL and informally Affero License) is a free software license. The first version of the Affero General Public License (AGPLv1), was published by Affero, Inc. in March 2002, and based on the GNU General Pu ...
(AGPL) license as
open-source software
Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Op ...
, a move which garnered press coverage due to its threat to then market leader Blackboard. As of 2020, while the core Canvas remains open-source, according to its
GitHub
GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continuous ...
frequently asked questions (FAQ), some Canvas functions and add-ons are proprietary.
In June 2013, Instructure secured $30 million in Series D Funding, bringing their lifetime funding total to $50 million. In February 2015, it raised another $40 million in Series E Funding, raising their lifetime funding total to $90 million. CEO Josh Coates described it as "a pre-
IPO
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...
round."
On November 13, 2015, the firm began trading as a publicly held company on the
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed c ...
.
In 2016,
Glassdoor
Glassdoor is an American website where current and former employees anonymously review companies. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, it has additional offices in Chicago, Dublin, London, and São Paulo. Glassdoor also allows its users to ...
named the firm #4 on its 'Best Places to Work' list. In 2018, the
Salt Lake Tribune
''The Salt Lake Tribune'' is a newspaper published in the city of Salt Lake City, Utah. The ''Tribune'' is owned by The Salt Lake Tribune, Inc., a non-profit corporation. The newspaper's motto is "Utah's Independent Voice Since 1871."
History
A ...
named it its #6 'Top Work Places' for large businesses.
In December 2019, Instructure announced that
Thoma Bravo
Thoma Bravo, LP, is an American private equity and growth capital firm with offices in San Francisco, Chicago and Miami. It is known for being particularly active in acquiring software companies and has over $114 billion in assets under manage ...
would acquire the company for $2 billion. Thoma Bravo completed the acquisition of Instructure in March 2020.
In June 2021, Instructure again filed for an Initial Public Offering.
Products
Canvas
Instructure, Inc. was created to support the continued development of a learning management system known as Canvas or Canvas LMS, formally Instructure; once incorporated, the founders changed the name of the software from Instructure to Canvas. The Utah-based company tested the
learning management system
A learning management system (LMS) is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting, automation, and delivery of educational courses, training programs, materials or learning and development programs. The learni ...
at several local schools, including
Utah State University
Utah State University (USU or Utah State) is a public land-grant research university in Logan, Utah. It is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. With nearly 20,000 students living on or near campus, USU is Utah's ...
and
Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University (BYU, sometimes referred to colloquially as The Y) is a private research university in Provo, Utah. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day ...
, before officially launching the system.
Canvas is used by some schools, allowing students to submit assignments easily, answer to discussions, access and upload media using Canvas Studio, and retrieve things from their
Google Drive
Google Drive is a file storage and synchronization service developed by Google. Launched on April 24, 2012, Google Drive allows users to store files in the cloud (on Google's servers), synchronize files across devices, and share files. In addi ...
after linking Canvas with their
Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
account. Like students, Canvas allows teachers to create assignments, discussions, pages, and modules. Teachers can even integrate supported external tools or see what their course is viewed like as a student; this is known as "Student View." As of 2020, Canvas is used in approximately 4,000 institutions worldwide.
Instructure launched its Canvas
iOS
iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
app in 2011, soon to be shortly followed by its Canvas
Android app in 2013, enabling support for mobile access to the platform. The apps were split into three sections: Canvas Student, Canvas Teacher, and Canvas Parent. Canvas Student allowed students to access Canvas' student features, Canvas Teacher, similar to students, allowed teachers to access Canvas' teacher features, and Canvas Parent allowed parents of K-12 students to stay informed on their child's assignments, grades, and overall schooling, all of which being similar to the functions of the website.
In August 2020, 16 states across the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
confirmed a partnership with Instructure to adopt its Canvas platform for their educational institutions. The states said that by adopting Canvas as a statewide solution to the challenges raised by the global
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
, they hoped to provide stronger support to students and educators.
Canvas Catalog
In 2014, Instructure launched Canvas Catalog, a course catalog tool designed to help schools market their course offerings to non-traditional learners and professional development.
Canvas Studio
In 2016, Instructure launched Canvas Studio, branded initially as Arc, a video learning platform tightly integrated with Canvas designed to deliver asynchronous video content and quizzing, as well as a video editing and archiving functionality.
Portfolium
In 2019, Instructure acquired Portfolium and integrated their pathways, Program Assessment, and ePortfolio network into the Canvas. Portfolium is designed to simplify the assessment of student learning, showcase evidence of knowledge, and keep students engaged along pathways to prepare them for careers.
MasteryConnect
In 2019, Instructure acquired MasteryConnect, a K-12 assessment management system that enables data-driven instruction and personalized learning with tools for formative and interim assessments, teacher collaboration, ae-acquire-certica-solutions-make-learning-personal-every-student, title = Instructure to Acquire Certica Solutions to Make Learning Personal for Every Student which provides assessment content and analytics primarily to K-12 districts in the United States. Products added through this acquisition include the Navigate Item Bank, CASE Benchmarks, CASE Item Banks, Videri, Academic Benchmarks, Certify, DataConnect, and prebuilt formative offerings.
Impact
In 2021, Instructure acquired EesySoft, a Dutch educational technology company, and rebranded the EesySoft product to Impact by Instructure. Impact is designed to help educators and students use educational technology products more effectively by embedding guides, tutorials, and prompts into the software.
Bridge
On February 18, 2015, Instructure officially launched Bridge, a cloud-based corporate learning management system. This launch followed $40 million raised in Series E funding, led by
Insight Venture Partners
Insight Partners (previously Insight Venture Partners) is an American venture capital and private equity firm based in New York City. The firm invests in growth-stage technology, software and Internet businesses.
History
Insight Partners was fo ...
. EPIC Ventures and
Bessemer Venture Partners
Bessemer Venture Partners (Bessemer) is an American venture capital firm. The firm has over $19 billion under management and invests globally, with offices in San Francisco, Redwood City, New York City, Boston, Israel, India, and London.
Bessemer ...
also participated in the funding. This round raised their total lifetime funding close to $90 million. At launch, Bridge served 6 corporate clients, including
Oregon State University
Oregon State University (OSU) is a public land-grant, research university in Corvallis, Oregon. OSU offers more than 200 undergraduate-degree programs along with a variety of graduate and doctoral degrees. It has the 10th largest engineering co ...
, which had also been using Canvas for their students since fall 2015.
Bridge now serves more than 500 clients.
On February 15, 2021, it was announced Bridge would be acquired by Learning Technologies Group (LTG). The deal to officially acquire Bridge completed on February 26th, 2021.
See also
*
History of virtual learning environments
A virtual learning environment (VLE) is a system that creates an environment designed to facilitate teachers' management of educational courses for their students, especially a system using computer hardware and software, which involves distance ...
*
Virtual learning environment
A virtual learning environment (VLE) in educational technology is a web-based platform for the digital aspects of courses of study, usually within educational institutions. They present resources, activities, and interactions within a course stru ...
References
{{reflist
2008 establishments in the United States
2008 establishments in Utah
2015 initial public offerings
2019 mergers and acquisitions
American companies established in 2008
Companies based in Salt Lake City
Companies formerly listed on the New York Stock Exchange
Education companies established in 2008
Educational software companies
Educational technology companies of the United States
Learning management systems
A learning management system (LMS) is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting, automation, and delivery of educational courses, training programs, materials or learning and development programs. The learni ...
Learning management systems
Private equity portfolio companies
Software companies based in Utah
Software companies established in 2008
Software companies of the United States
Virtual learning environments