Rip Empson

It’s turning into a busy week for Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) providers, and the tech companies that love them — particularly Google. On Monday, Udacity co-founder and CEO Sebastian…

eGood, a new startup from Glendora, California, was chosen as one of the top startups to emerge out of Startup Alley at TechCrunch Disrupt SF today for its charitable spin…

As we’ve discussed before, thanks to a handful of names, including Kickstarter and Indiegogo and the gaggle of startups that have emerged in their wake, crowdfunding is on the “Big…

Today at TechCrunch Disrupt SF, a young, teacher-led education technology startup called Skaffl announced the impending launch of an iPad app that aims to help teachers make better use of…

This morning, former San Francisco Mayor and current Lieutenant Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, and Udacity co-founder and CEO Sebastian Thrun took the stage to talk to TechCrunch co-editor Alexia…

Desire2Learn, the Ontario-based makers of one of the largest Learning Management Systems (LMS) that raised $80 million last year, has been going after M&A of late. Today, after buying student…

Today, technology is in the process of transforming healthcare. The whole nine years: From software, medicine and insurance to fitness, care delivery and the very science behind all of it.…

While the pace has slowed of late, thanks to Kindles, Nooks, iPads and the steady advance of mobile technology, the eBook market (and the demand for all manners of digital…

Over the last few years, Startup Land has played home to the dramatic re-emergence of a tried-and-true, familiar model: Subscription commerce. The rise of smartphones, tablets, “The Cloud,” Big Data…

Check, the makers of a cross-platform mobile finance app that allows users to track their cash, bills, investments and credit cards and pay bills while on the go, announced today…

Over the last two years, the digital health space has been on fire. With the healthcare market bogged down by high costs, old technology and slow-moving giants, the space is…

Brock Blake and Levi King have founded more than six companies between them. Over the course of their various entrepreneurial endeavors, like many other small business owners entrepreneurs, Blake and…

The declining quality of humanities education (and student performance) in the U.S. has become a big problem. Last year, the College Board reported that SAT scores in reading and writing…

Thanks to the steady march of technology into the world of education, it’s a great time to be a lifelong learner. Today, there are a growing number of platforms that…

Weebly, the service that lets you, your grandma and anyone else build a website for free, is growing fast. The startup launched out of Y Combinator in 2007 and today…

RealScout, a new real estate technology company based in Sunnyvale, is the latest to join a growing list of startups operating on the premise that the tools we use to…

Crowdtilt is today launching the first public version of Crowdhoster — its full-featured, open-source, customizable crowdfunding tool that will allow anyone to launch their own campaign without having to touch…

Stephanie Dua spent the last ten years pushing for educational reform, first as the CEO of the Fund for Public Schools under former Chancellor of New York’s Department of Education,…

Of the many ways that technology is disrupting education, one area that’s changing a lot, is rife with potential, but doesn’t get as much play as it should is tutoring.…

The professional network announced its second quarter earnings results on Thursday, and it was another good one, as the company grew to 238 million members and saw revenue increase to…

TechCrunch has learned today that Socrative, an intelligent student response system aimed for K-12 classrooms, has quietly raised $750K in seed financing from True Ventures, NewSchools Ventures and a handful…

If you haven’t heard, some of the former giants of the education world haven’t been doing too well, particularly academic publishers, as evidenced by McGraw-Hill’s recent sale and Cengage’s filing…

After a year in development and looking to capitalize on the growing popularity of “people discovery” apps like Highlight and mobile flirting apps like Tinder, today Twine is officially bringing…

These days it seems as if a startup so much as glances in Marissa Mayer’s direction, it can expect a bid within 24 hours. There’s been a lot of buzz…

For small businesses, managing health insurance and payroll services can be a huge pain and time-sink. They probably don’t have someone on staff dedicated to these issues, and they themselves…

At TechCrunch Disrupt NYC back in April, former Facebook exec-turned-venture capitalist, Chamath Palihapitiya delivered a deflating critique of the tech industry — in particular, the quality of its startups. Had…

Over the last few years, a new wave of startups has emerged to tackle a range of inefficient, ignored or offline segments within the massive world of fashion and retail.…

While its roots lie in search, today, Google wears many hats. From self-driving cars and wearable technology to social networking and mobile operating systems, there are few industries where the…

Josh Fraser and Jon Fox founded Torbit in 2010 after becoming fed up with the amount of time they’d spent at past startups managing website performance optimization by hand. In…

Investors tend not to be cool, sexy or “famous” in the traditional sense. After all, anyone can invest in one great company, but reproducing those victories habitually over decades is…