Warburg Pincus Leads an Investment of Up to $60 Million in Higher Education Data Pioneer

AUSTIN, TX--(Marketwired - Sep 28, 2015) - Civitas Learning® ("the company") today announced that Warburg Pincus is leading an investment of up to $60 million in the company. Civitas Learning has pioneered the use of data science and design thinking to support higher education institutions as they improve learning and increase degree completion.

Civitas Learning launched its beta program with six colleges and universities in 2011, and began working with other leading institutions from across higher education in 2013, forming what is called the Pioneer cohort. Since that time, the company has worked with a wide variety of partner institutions to develop and deploy an integrated analytics system that draws data from multiple sources and uses cutting-edge data science to build institution-specific predictive models for student intake, persistence and graduation.

Civitas Learning uses design thinking to bring insights, interventions, and inspirations from this system to administrators, advisors, faculty, and students through a suite of integrated and engaging apps. These apps help leaders try and test initiatives, advisors better target and time student outreach, faculty improve engagement, and students plan their courses and program.

"From the beginning, our goal was to help our partner institutions make the most of their data to help more students learn well and finish strong," said Dr. Mark Milliron, Civitas Learning's Co-Founder and Chief Learning Officer. "We look forward to working closely with Warburg Pincus and our other investors as this investment enables us to take our work to the next level."

The new growth investment reflects the increasing demand among institutions for actionable data and insight that assist them in making better-informed decisions and provide faculty, advisors, and students with more personalized and timely support.

By creating a comprehensive education analytics system and apps for students, faculty, advisors and administrators, Civitas Learning is poised to help educational institutions address key challenges in higher education around student learning and attainment. Moreover, the Civitas Learning education analytics system is intended to power apps developed by other companies and even by member colleges.

"We intend to help fuel an ecosystem of educational innovation," said Charles Thornburgh, Founder and CEO of Civitas Learning. "Already, our partner institutions are making unprecedented breakthroughs for students by using rigorous data science to improve the student experience. With this investment, we're going to be able to improve and accelerate both learning and student outcomes for our partner institutions."