Milwaukee-based Keystone Insights Inc. has raised $1.25 million from 22 investors, according to a document filed with the SEC this week.
The seed funding round, which started in September 2014, will help one of its startups, Project Foundry, expand its educational solution. The Software as a Service product is a collaborative workflow and reporting solution for K-12 learning that aims to empower students to drive their education.
Project Foundry is located at 131 W. Seeboth St. in Milwaukee. It is currently serving about 100 schools, including some Muskego-Norway Schools, University School, a Kettle Moraine school, a Hartland school and Escuela Verde in the Milwaukee area. It has also just signed on the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.
Venture philanthropy firm BrightStar Wisconsin Foundation Inc. was one of the investors in this round, making its $50,000 commitment in December 2014. In return, Project Foundry agreed to create 20 new jobs in the next three years.
Bill Mortimore, chief executive officer of Project Foundry, was the lead investor in the round with an undisclosed figure that was several times what BrightStar invested, Mortimore said.
“It’s something that I believe in, which is why I got involved,” he said. “I actually had project-based learning when I was in junior high school back in the day and it does work.”
Keystone also expects to raise an expansion round of between $1 million and $3 million. It will announce that round in the next month, Mortimore said.
Project Foundry has nine employees. The company was founded in 2005 and Keystone got involved in 2012.
Keystone Insights provides collaborative workflow solutions for individual professionals by selling targeted, web-based tools.
