Top Hat Monocle Takes Its Classroom Response System International, Signs Up 25K Students In Asia-Pacific Region

Top Hat Monocle, the Toronto, Canada-based service that provides a web-based clicker and online homework tool that aims to make large lecture-based classes more engaging, just announced that it is expanding its reach to the Asia-Pacific region, with a focus on Australia and New Zealand. The company also announced that more than 25,000 students are currently signed up to use the services in the next semester. These students, the company notes, come from 27 of Australia’s 39 universities and New Zealand.

“Top Hat Monocle is the first cloud-based classroom response tool brought to Australia, and we look forward to capturing a significant share of the APAC higher education market,” said Rok Kopp, sirector of International Sales at Top Hat Monocle in a prepared statement today. Australia currently has about 1 million students who are enrolled in its universities.

So far, all of the companies that used Top Hat Monocle were in North America, with the exception of one school in Namibia. “A traveling professor from Canada brought it over, and they’ve adopted it for their whole school now,” Top Hat Monocle COO Andrew D’Souza told me earlier today. Today’s announcement marks the company’s first official international expansion.

Top Hat’s web-based tool allows students to use their laptops, phone and tablets to provide instant feedback to teachers through polls, quizzes and open-ended questions. Teachers can also use it to show students interactive demos. Beyond these features, the service also offers a homework tool, gradebook and a file-sharing tool.

The company currently has an office in Sydney and seven sales representatives who will support its operations in the region. Top Hat Monocle recently announced that it raised $1.1 million in follow-on funding, on top of the $8 million it announced last July. The company currently has over 70 employees, and its technology is currently being used at over 250 universities worldwide.