E-Learning is Big Business

This week's Washington Business Journal has an article on the business end of 'E-Learning.'  Journal reporter Bill Flook writes of a "...heightened interest from venture capitalists (VC) in companies that develop educational software..." and, "As big, for-profit companies capture some of the billions of dollars that the nation spends each year on education, venture capitalists are showing a bigger appetite for e-learning deals."

Why?
According to Tony Florence, a partner at NEA, one of the biggest VC companies on the planet, "It's an area where things are really accelerating..." and, says Roger Novak, a general partner at Novak Biddle Venture Partners in Bethesda, "I think what you see there is continuing instability, or chaos, surrounding the whole education area...Anytime you have that, I think there is an opportunity to make money."

Here are a few of the for-profit E-learning companies in our area: Blackboard, Inc. (DC); K-12, Inc. (Herndon); Strayer University (Arlington); Intelliworks, Inc. (Bethesda); ePals (Herndon); Latimer Education, Inc. (DC); Regent Education, Inc. (Frederick); and Moodlerooms, Inc. (Baltimore).

No wonder MCPS is takin' it private!  Taxpayers, we are all VCs now!