PRENDA

In 2018 Kelly Smith volunteered to run a coding club at his local library in Mesa, Arizona. Seven kids showed up.

He noticed they learned faster in a tiny group than in a classroom of 30. So he started a microschool in his own home with a handful of students.

Parents wanted in. Smith had sold a small software company in 2013, so he knew how to build a product.

He turned the idea into a platform that lets any adult run a small school from home. Prenda joined Y Combinator's 2019 batch and grew from there.

Prenda builds the software and curriculum. Local adults — called guides — run the actual microschools out of homes or small spaces.

Most Prenda microschools are tuition-free because they partner with charter schools or use state education funds, so the public money follows the kid. Prenda makes money by charging for its platform and services.

Think of it as the operating system for a neighborhood school of 10 kids. Parents get something between homeschooling and a real school, without paying private-school prices.

The core product is the Prenda platform — the software guides use to run a microschool, track progress, and deliver lessons. Kids move through a daily rhythm Prenda calls Conquer, Collaborate, and Create.

There is a full K-8 curriculum built in. And there is the guide training program that turns a regular adult into someone who can run a classroom of 10.

The real product is the whole package that lets a microschool exist at all.

Prenda grew by making it dead simple for a parent to become a teacher. You do not need a credential.

You need a living room and Prenda's software. The company rode two big waves.

First, the 2020 school shutdowns pushed millions of families to look for alternatives. Second, the school-choice movement got real political money behind it.

By 2022 Prenda had roughly 3,000 students across 300 microschools in six states. Word of mouth from happy parents did most of the selling.

Regulation and trust. Prenda is not a licensed school, so it lives in a gray zone that changes state by state.

In 2022 an Arizona news investigation raised questions about oversight and how public money flowed to the model. The whole thing depends on parents believing an untrained neighbor can teach their kid better than a real school.

When it works, families love it. When it does not, there is no principal to call.

Scaling trust is much harder than scaling software.

Prenda raised around $46 million total. The headline round was a $20 million Series B in June 2022 led by Seven Seven Six, the fund started by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.

Earlier backers include Y Combinator, Learn Capital, and Lean Startup author Eric Ries. Learn Capital, an education-focused fund, led an earlier round.

The common thread is investors who think the traditional school system is ready to be shaken up.