EdTech Start-up Mindsmith Secures $550K Pre-Seed Funding
Mindsmith, an EdTech startup based in Orem, Utah, recently announced a successful pre-seed round of funding, totaling $550,000. The round was led by Salt Lake City-based Grix Venture Capital and supported by SaaS Ventures, a Miami-based early-stage investor.
The funding round also saw participation from Peterson Ventures (Salt Lake City); Actium Partners (Salt Lake City); Austen Allred, angel investor with Utah roots and CEO/Co-founder of BloomTech, the San Francisco-based coding bootcamp formerly known as Lambda School; and Stuart Fetzer, angel investor and CEO of wellness and fitness company, Kailo Labs (Salt Lake City). Mindsmith first presented their concept at the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute’s Utah Entrepreneur Challenge in February.
Co-founded by Ethan Webb and Zachary Allen, Mindsmith emerged from BYU’s Sandbox startup development programme. The startup focuses on developing artificial intelligence-powered e-learning tools for instructional designers. Mindsmith aims to revolutionize the e-learning authoring tools industry by utilizing AI and innovative software engineering techniques.
One of Mindsmith’s biggest advancements is their approach to improving SCORM (Shared Content Object Reference Model) files. This widely used format for managing web-based electronic educational content was developed by the Department of Defence in the early 2000s and can become unwieldy due to their large size and static nature. Mindsmith has found a way to host these files in the cloud within seconds, instead of hours, while ensuring dynamic updates without requiring users to engage in cumbersome processes.
In addition, Mindsmith’s AI integration into existing workflows for instructional designers will save time for Learning Management System (LMS) administrators while providing personalized content contextualized within organizations.
The startup is currently based at the UVU Business Resource Centre in Orem, which offers low-cost office space subsidized by the state government to startup teams.
Randall Lloyd, CEO of Grix Venture Capital, is no stranger to EdTech success. He co-founded Brighter Option, an ad tech software platform that was acquired by Salesforce in 2012. He then became a General Partner at Peterson Ventures, where he led investments in several Utah-connected SaaS startups (Workstream, Spiff, Grain, Tava Health, Woolly, and others) and many other startups outside the state. Lloyd established Grix in April 2021, raising $20 million for its first fund.
Mindsmith is on its way to transforming e-learning experiences with cutting-edge AI technology applications, and this pre-seed funding will surely help the startup reach their goals.
