EdCast secures $6 million Series A funding led by SoftBank Capital

Tech education startup EdCast has raised $6 million in venture funding led by Softbank Capital, Menlo Ventures, Novel TMT Ventures, Mitch Kapor, Cervin Ventures, Aarin Capital, NewSchools Venture Fund and the Stanford StartX Fund.

The proceedings will help EdCast further its concept of ‘multi-versities’ that exist beyond single institutions via the cloud using its Knowledge Cloud platform to facilitate inter-university collaboration.

EdCast creates knowledge cloud platforms that allow anyone to create their own MOOC with an unlimited number of participants for institutions, educators, enterprises and governments globally. Basically it enables educators and institutions to deliver their content worldwide.

“We are excited to once again back Karl Mehta and his latest vision to transform traditional industries – in this case higher education – by combining the entrepreneurial spirit of Silicon Valley with the latest innovative technologies,” said Steve Murray, Partner, SoftBank Capital. “Karl is a proven entrepreneur and has built a great team committed to their vision for EdCast and its personalized learning networks to reshape the future of online education.”

At present, there are 39 universities, including Columbia University, Michigan State, Trinity College Dublin and the University of Botswana among others are using the startup’s Knowledge Cloud, which was build using OpenEdX.

Universities can use the platform to create their own MOOCs, and EdCast envisions the educational collaboration expanding to include companies and governments alongside the schools.

“These investments represent a quantum jump to let data-rich and personalized Knowledge Clouds enable higher education institutions and top educators to deliver their content globally with sustainable business models,” said Karl Mehta, Founder & CEO of EdCast Inc. and most recently Founder & CEO of PlaySpan, acquired by VISA.

“With EdCast, we’ll see the rise of the ‘multi-versity’ where hundreds of campuses interconnected through public and private hosted clouds offer the best curriculum from major institutions in the U.S. and around the world.”