Our Investment in Coursedog – The Modernization of Academic Operations

By Peter Arrowsmith and Jack Duane

The stress of final exams and grades looms large at semester end. It’s an expected, even necessary, part of the college experience. But why should the beginning of each semester be difficult and uncertain – with course registration as hard as buying tickets for a sold-out concert?

Justin Wenig and Nick Diao asked this question as students at Columbia. They answered it by creating Coursedog, a leading academic operations platform for higher education.

JMI has proactively tracked and invested in higher education software for over two decades. Through partnerships with leading companies such as Ellucian and CampusLogic, we have seen the positive impact that software can have on improving college and university operations.

We first met the Coursedog team a few years ago in New York City. While they weren’t looking to raise capital at the time, we were impressed with their product-centricity, relentless focus on facilitating successful outcomes for customers and long-term vision for the Company. When they decided to bring on a growth partner for Coursedog, we knew that we wanted to be involved. The result: JMI’s $90 million strategic growth investment in Coursedog, announced in March of 2023.

Higher Education stymied by legacy, fragmented software products

America’s colleges and universities are tasked with the critical mission of preparing students for the ‘real world’ and professional careers. Today, most schools still rely on technology solutions that were developed in the 1990s and early 2000s. Schools are often forced to stitch together a mosaic of point solutions to manage their academic operations.

For example, when it comes to the creation of course calendars, many schools are still using paper and Excel spreadsheets to organize complex schedules for professors and students. Unfortunately, at many schools, academic scheduling is still more art than science. This inefficient process contributes to many of the issues that make it difficult for America’s college students to graduate on time and under budget.

Accelerating success: For students, institutions, and investors

Enter Coursedog… the Company brought a cloud-based, user-friendly approach to streamlining academic operations. At more than 200 higher education institutions, including Columbia University, Stanford, CUNY, and BYU, Coursedog’s software platform is enabling efficiency, consistency, and data-driven decision-making in academic operations.

By eliminating the roadblocks caused by manual, siloed data and operations, Coursedog lets students easily access the information, requirements, and courses they need to complete their programs – in less time and therefore at less cost. For institutions, Coursedog’s unified platform reduces costs and increases efficiency. The platform helps colleges and universities improve retention, completion, and operational excellence by better serving their students.

In addition to course scheduling and curriculum planning, Coursedog also delivers a streamlined and modern curriculum management experience. Every college needs a catalog to communicate class information to the student body. Today, these catalogs are often static PDFs that are hard to navigate and provide limited information. With Coursedog, college catalogs can be attractively designed and easily navigated – creating a positive student experience and favorable first impression.

Partners in growth and achievement

Our experience in higher education has shown us that colleges and universities want to serve their faculty and students with modern software. Provosts and registrars want to run their academic operations like agile businesses, with a focus on delivering a stellar student experience. Through getting to know the Coursedog team and speaking with their large cohort of happy customers, it became clear to us that Coursedog was solving a real unmet need in higher education. Coursedog’s platform is applicable for a wide range of institutions, including community colleges, professional schools, small private colleges, and large public universities. With Coursedog, schools of all shapes and sizes are able to seamlessly modernize their academic operations.

Our investment will go towards expansion of Coursedog’s product platform and the ongoing buildout of Coursedog’s stellar team, including new Chief Executive Officer Andrew Rosen. Rosen is a successful founder and executive who brings nearly three decades of experience to Coursedog.

“I am deeply impressed by the scope of Coursedog’s offering and the impact it’s having at partner institutions,” said Rosen. “I see a significant need for a unified academic operations solution to drive efficiency and provide the insights that higher education needs in today’s changing educational landscape to continue improving student outcomes.”

At JMI, we remain focused on partnering with world-class software businesses that solve mission-critical problems for their customers. As long-term partners, we are committed to helping Coursedog achieve its goal of serving every college and university and look forward to supporting their mission for years to come.

Disclaimer: JMI believes this information to be accurate and current as of the date of publication but cannot guarantee its accuracy. 

The JMI portfolio company(ies) identified above are not necessarily representative of all JMI investments, and no assumption should be made that the investments identified were or will be profitable. For a complete list of JM investments, please visit https://www.jmi.com/companies/.