“An A.I. software solution that will help million of students master critical skills for high-demand careers”

Investment Amount : $50,000 | Year : 2016 | Sector : Education| City : Austin, TX

The Challenge
Students: Students simply don’t know where they are making errors on homework, and because assignments take so long to grade they continue to make the same mistakes and further ingrain bad habits. Developmental math and other STEM coursework represent a barrier for students attempting to make the leap from high school to college. Teachers: Differentiated instruction is nearly impossible with current class sizes. Publishers: Revenue is being eroded by the proliferation of resale and rental textbook markets.

The Innovation
Querium, founded in 2013, provides the StepWise Virtual Tutor, a virtual tutoring solution for learners in K-12, higher education, and workforce development. StepWise’s artificial intelligence tracks students’ progress and provides instant feedback, mimicking the experience of a live tutor by showing students exactly where errors are made. Querium’s hand-writing recognition software also captures data from students’ scratchwork to tell teachers where students are making errors and where teachers need to augment their instruction. Finally, Querium addresses publishers’ pain points by creating recurring revenue via software licensing renewals and providing more adaptive and self-paced content for publishers.

The Impact
SVF’s $50k investment was part of a bridge financing round. The funding will be used to ramp sales and expand Querium’s product line into other STEM subjects.