Salt Lake's Instructure buys partner MasteryConnect

Instructure Inc., a Salt Lake City software-as-a-service technology company, has acquired its local longtime partner MasteryConnect. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Instructure markets its learning software such as Canvas and Bridge to both educational institutions and corporations for employee development. Its customers include over 4,000 schools and companies worldwide. MasteryConnect is a K-12 assessment and curriculum platform supporting educators as they drive student growth through formative and benchmark assessment, curriculum planning and collaboration.

Instructure said that through this acquisition, it will accelerate the shift occurring at the state level as they replace high-stakes, end-of-year testing with innovative assessment models. This new approach uses formative data to provide actionable insights for teachers and students.

“Today’s educators are trying to move away from archaic, end-of-year testing and looking for more intuitive evaluation models,” said Dan Goldsmith, CEO of Instructure. “Together, Canvas and MasteryConnect will place valuable data in the hands of our teachers, not once but throughout the year so they can focus on activities that increase student learning.”

Goldsmith said that MasteryConnect is designed to quickly identify student levels of understanding, target areas for personalized growth and give teachers the data they need to direct each student’s learning. 

MasteryConnect was founded in 2009 and employs about 60. Instructure was founded by Goldsmith in 2008 and has about 1,100 employees.

“This acquisition brings together many years of partnership and synergies with Instructure,” said Mick Hewitt, co-founder and CEO of MasteryConnect, who will join Instructure as general manager of MasteryConnect. “It highlights the alignment of our shared mission to transform learning while expanding our reach both domestically and globally.”