From RichmondInno By Drew Hansen
John Failia is the founder and CEO of Pearl
Pearl, a Richmond ed-tech startup that offers a tutor management software platform, has closed a seed round of more than $4 million.
In total, the company has raised $4.75 million in equity funding from 54 investors, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
Founder and CEO John Failla declined to comment further on the funding, but said the company has a number of partnerships it plans to unveil over the next few weeks.
The company changed its name from Trilogy Mentors about a year ago, a move Failla said at the time reflected the startup’s evolution since its 2016 founding. It originally launched as an in-person tutoring program and went through Richmond’s Lighthouse Labs accelerator before transitioning to a technology company. Pearl provides a proprietary software-as-a-service platform for educators to launch and scale a branded, relationship-based online learning program.
“We licensed out our all-in-one hybrid tutoring platform to companies, institutions and freelancers so they can launch programs overnight,” Failla said last year.
Failla is also the inaugural founder-in-residence at the University of Richmond Robins School of Business.
