Cafe Learn

Café Learn has the right team & solution to help colleges innovate teaching and learning for greater student success.

  • Stage Full Product Ready
  • Industry Education
  • Location Stamford, CT, US
  • Currency USD
  • Founded July 2013
  • Employees 6
  • Website cafelearn.com

Company Summary

Café Learn™ colleges innovate teaching and learning for greater student success. Its SaaS platform enables instructors to easily design, develop and deliver engaged learning experiences that replace traditional course formats.

With college retention rates just over 50%, states and institutions are losing $billions in subsidized tuitions. The solution? Engage students in the learning to increase student success. Institutions and their faculty need a combination of easy-to-use technology and professional development so that faculty can change their course design and delivery. States have mandates, including legislation, and funding for higher education institutions to create programs that improve student success and retention. By enabling instructors to easily shift to the course of the future, Café Learn helps institutions increase student success and keep lost dollars on the table.

The company launched commercially in August, 2015. Its anchor client is the California State University (CSU) system, which has provided sponsorship and funding for faculty professional development around our platform and for instigating adoption programs at several of the 23 institutions in the system.

Team

  • Carrie has spent decades designing, developing and launching educational offerings. She has also been a strategic advisor and thought leader to industry leaders and innovators, including the leading publishers, educational technology firms, and retailers. And, she brings 20+ years of experience building and running an higher education company having founded and managed O'Donnell Learn from 1990 to 2012.

  • Co-Founder and Principal, Business Development

    Lyn brings a broad range of experience to Café Learn, including EVP level higher education publishing, general management and operations of curriculum and technology-enabled elearning businesses, marketing strategy and positioning, sales management and learning thought leadership, particularly in innovative redesign of educational experiences in collaborative and immersive learning environments.

  • Elana Dolberg
    Cofounder and Principle, Product and Curriculum

    is an expert at working with customers to bring new products into the market. In addition to years spent in marketing and product development roles with publishers and other curriculum companies, Elana has spent the past several years as a team lead and project manager at O’Donnell Learn, and brings the company's methodologies to Café Learn.

Advisors

  • Kristine Clerkin
    Director of Innovation Lab, Southern New Hampshire University
    Unconfirmed
    Mark Miller
    Managing Partner, Good Harbor Partners
    Unconfirmed
    Julie Anne Schell
    Director of OnRamps and Strategic Iniatives and Assistant Professor, University of Texas at Austin; Associate at the Mazur Group at Harvard University
    Unconfirmed
  • Joana Jebsen
    President of O'Donnell Learn
    Unconfirmed
    President at Evanta
    Gary June
    Unconfirmed

Previous Investors

  • Michael and Jamie Delaney
    Investors
    Unconfirmed
    Mitch Weisburgh
    Managing Partner, Academic Business Advisors
    Unconfirmed
    David deCsepel and Joy Chen
    President, VeritasRI
    Unconfirmed
  • Investor
    Larry and Joan O'Donnell
    Investor
    Unconfirmed

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