Sora, an Atlanta based startup, providing live, virtual high school classes closes $ 2.7M of seed funding round. The round was led by Union square ventures. Village global, Rethink Education Fireboard Ventures, Peak State Ventures, Contrary Capital and Angel investor Taylor green were the other participants involved in the fundraising round.
The company, led by Co-Founders Garrett Smiley, Indra Sofian & Wesley Samples lays focus on live, personalised, project-based curriculum. It is very different from the traditional mode of learning and basically caters to self-driven learners. The program involves giving students the responsibility and control over their education based on what they are actually interested in. In a way, it provides an alternative to private school based learning with a project-based learning approach. The central idea revolves around the concept of homeschooling.
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When students first enrol, the projects are designed by the staff and as they advance through the programme students can start designing their own projects based on their area of interest. The staff keeps them accountable for their goals and ensures rigor and breadth in their work, with check-in calls twice a day. Periodically, students will work on group projects led by mentors and industry professionals. Peer-to-peer accountability is a key aspect of Sora. Students consistently enrich the education of other students through their presentations at Friday Showcase and group learning sessions. Students meet constantly throughout the week, academically and socially. Each student has a weekly meeting with their counsellor to check in on their academic life, graduation progress, their personal and professional development, and overall learning experience at Sora. The assessment of the students is very different as compared to what we might see in a public or private school. Sora lets students lead with their own projects and when they finish, it takes what they did and determines what academic credit they have earned. As students complete projects, Sora tracks their credits so that they can graduate on time and apply to college if needed. Since the platform measures their individual credits, students can visualize their learning progress and where they need to spend more time for mastery. And overtime, students can complete all academic subjects they need to graduate. 
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Sora offers two types of enrolment programmes i.e. full-time program and part time programs (in STEM or Humanities). The fees for the full-time programme ranges between $300-$800 per month whereas for the part time programs its ranges between $250-$500 per month. If needed, financial assistance is also available for families that apply to the program based on a sliding scale tuition model. Families wishing to be considered for sliding scale tuition need to apply for tuition assistance by notifying the admissions counsellor during the admissions process.
Since March, founders Garrett, Wesley, and Indra have led Sora through a 5x increase in enrolment on the platform. The school is working with students across the country and the team is even getting requests from families internationally.  Industry mentors from companies such as Apple and Walmart have joined to give students a first-hand look at career paths that interest them.
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About Union Square Ventures
Union Square Ventures, a venture capital based in New York, USA is a firm focused on early-stage, growth-capital, late stage, and startup financing.
It exclusively invests in the internet world, focusing on the applications layer of the web, internet services, and web services that create large networks and also in the mobile sector. Most of its portfolio companies are based in New York, San Francisco, London, or Berlin, and most places in between. It typically makes a starting investment in portfolio companies of $1M. In certain Series A round cases, the firm may make a starting investment between $2.5 million to $3 million. Till date, the VC has made 307 investments of which 124 were lead investments. It has total of 20 team members.

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Homeschooling status and what it indicates

Statistics show that there are about 2.5M homeschool students in grade K-12 in USA (i.e. 3%-4% of school age children).Homeschooling population is continuing to grow (estimated 2%-8% in the past few years)

Homeschooling is becoming mainstream and also could be the fastest growing form of education in the US. It has been also growing around the world in many other nations (E.g. Australia, Canada, France, UK, etc). This means that not only US but lot of other countries as well as are trying to switch to this mode of learning as its believed to yield better results.
Taxpayers spend an average of $11,732 per pupil annually in public schools, plus capital expenditures over it. Taxpayers spend nothing on most homeschool students and homeschool families spend an average of $600 per student annually for their education which is very much cheaper as compared to the conventional way.
All this indicates to the changing times in USA. Conventional schooling is believed by a lot as one that doesn’t provide the practical skills needed to succeed in the industry whereas Homeschooling provides a way out which is cheap, provides practical knowledge which the industry demands, helps save a lot of time for the children enrolled ,helps customize the learning environment according to the needs of the child, etc.
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Garrett Smiley, Co-Founder of Sora is of the belief that students are switching to Sora as it will help them fast track their learning process. He states that Sora is tailor made for those who feel they are not able to explore their capabilities due to the loopholes in the existing education system.  
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“Sora is a much needed new approach to an education system that has been largely stagnant for many decades,” said Rebecca Kaden, managing partner of Union Square Ventures. “It offers a personalized system with a scalable network, creating an opportunity to become the largest high school in the world while also allowing each student to pursue his/her own passions and individual learning journey”. She is of the belief that education shouldn’t be one-size-fits-all and Sora is creating something adaptable and effective at a time when parents and students are realizing that alternative forms of learning are required and possible.
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The funds will be used to build Sora’s employee base of software engineers for LMS (Learning Management System) development. The capital will also be used to build its work+study programme, integrating real work and internship opportunities into the curriculum & enhance marketing and business development efforts