Amplify
The Brooklyn maker of mCLASS reading screeners and Science of Reading curriculum, privately held since News Corp sold it in 2015, now selling into school budgets with the pandemic money gone.
Amplify home page- Valuation
- Not disclosed No round since the 2015 buyout has published a price. The last raise, a Cox-led Series C in May 2023, gave no amount.
- Raised
- $215M disclosed A growth round in Oct 2021. The 2015 buyout and 2023 Series C amounts were never published.
- Watch
- Post-ESSER budgets Federal pandemic school money ran out in early 2026. District tech budgets are back to pre-pandemic levels, per CoSN.
- AI
- Teacher-side AI AI drafts lesson plans, groups and writing scores for teachers to review. Amplify says its student-facing features do not use generative AI.
- Remote
- 35 of 36 tagged remote Our Nov 3 read of its Ashby board. Field sales roles must live in territory, and one VP role asks for regular NYC office time.
- Hiring
- 25 → 33 remote listings since Oct 10.
Curriculum, reading screeners and tutoring, sold to school districts.
Amplify sells core curriculum (CKLA reading, Desmos Math, Amplify Science, middle school ELA), digital practice (Boost), the mCLASS screening and intervention suite, tutoring and teacher training. Buyers are US school districts in all 50 states; it says it reaches 8,000+ districts. It does not publish revenue or a split.
Amplify home page- 1Its screener sits inside thousands of schoolsMore than 4 million students were assessed with mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition, per its Oct 2026 data brief, which drew on 1,800 schools in 43 states.Amplify data brief, Oct 8, 2026
- 2Top marks from the main curriculum reviewerFive Amplify programs hold all-green EdReports ratings. Desmos Math was the fifth, in Feb 2026, used by 23,000+ teachers and 1M+ students.Amplify release, Feb 26, 2026
- 3Already in close to a third of K-8 classroomsAmplify said in 2023 it serves close to a third of US K-8 students. McGraw Hill's 2026 annual report names Amplify among its competitors.Amplify release, May 23, 2023; McGraw Hill 10-K
Every round, and what its terms give away.
Amplify is private, so there is no share price. What its investors paid, and on what terms, is the closest thing to one.
- May 23Series CLed by Cox EnterprisesAmount and valuation not disclosed. Existing investors Emerson Collective, Learn Capital and A-Street Ventures. For K-12 products and acquisitions.Amplify release, May 23, 2023; EdWeek Market Brief
- Oct 27Growth round$215MLed by Learn Capital and A-Street VenturesExisting investor Emerson Collective joined. For acquisitions and digital supplemental programs. Valuation not disclosed.Private Equity Wire, Oct 27, 2021
- Sep 30Management buyout from News CorpLed by Emerson Collective (Laurene Powell Jobs)Price not disclosed. Managers took a minority stake. News Corp had put about $1B into Amplify and took a $371M charge on it in Aug 2015.Fortune (Reuters), Nov 23, 2015; Education Week, Oct 2, 2015
- Down round or flat round?Cannot tell. No valuation has been published for the 2015 buyout, the 2021 round or the 2023 Series C.EdWeek Market Brief, Jun 2, 2023Open
- How much of the company the last round soldUnknown. The 2023 Series C amount was not disclosed, and no Form D filing for Amplify Education was found on SEC EDGAR.Amplify release, May 23, 2023; EDGAR search Nov 3, 2026Open
- Time since the last raiseAbout 41 months (May 2023). A long gap is normal for a company that pays its way, but Amplify publishes no profit figures, so we cannot say which this is.Amplify release, May 23, 2023Open
- Structured or unusual termsNo liquidation preference, ratchet, warrant or debt terms have been reported for any round. Nothing filed publicly to check.EdWeek Market Brief, Jun 2, 2023Open
- New outside lead or insiders only?Both recent rounds had new outside leads: Learn Capital and A-Street Ventures in 2021, Cox Enterprises in 2023. Existing investors joined both.Amplify release, May 23, 2023; Private Equity Wire, 2021Clear
- Employee liquidityNo tender offer or employee share sale found. On the Ashby board, equity is offered only on some director, VP and C-level roles.Amplify Ashby job board; news search Nov 3, 2026Open
- Layoffs in the last 12 monthsNews searches for 2025 and 2026 found no reported Amplify layoffs. The last widely reported cut was 500+ jobs in 2015, before the buyout. State WARN databases were not checked one by one.K-12 Dive, Oct 2, 2015; news search Nov 3, 2026Clear
Clear: checked, nothing found. Flag: found, with the source. Open: could not be checked.
What the record says, and what we think it means.
The fact is the source's. The read, in italics, is ours.
- 01Watch
The pandemic school money is gone.
EdTech Magazine, Aug 2026; K-12 Dive, Apr 1, 2025The Education Department cancelled ESSER spending extensions in Mar 2025; the ESSER-ARP deadline for most states was Mar 30, 2026. CoSN's CEO says districts are back to pre-pandemic tech budgets.
Amplify's 2021 raise targeted digital supplemental programs, the kind of add-on many districts bought with relief money. Renewals of those add-ons are the likely pressure point; core curriculum is harder to cut.
- 02Watch
Texas made its own free version of Amplify's reading program.
Texas Tribune, Aug 28, 2025Bluebonnet is Texas' state-owned version of a curriculum Amplify developed. The state paid another company $84M to revise it and pays districts $60 per student to adopt; about 317 districts planned to use its reading lessons.
Hundreds of Texas districts used Amplify before this. A free state-owned rival in one of the three biggest adoption states could cut paid CKLA sales there.
- 03Good
Its math program earned top reviewer marks in 2026.
Amplify release, Feb 26, 2026Amplify Desmos Math got all-green EdReports scores in Feb 2026, the fifth Amplify program to do so. It had 23,000+ teachers and 1M+ students in 2025-26 and is a pre-approved NYC Public Schools curriculum.
All-green ratings often decide which programs make district shortlists. Math is Amplify's newest core product line, built on the 2022 Desmos curriculum purchase.
- 04Good
California picked mCLASS as an approved K-2 dyslexia screener.
EdTech Innovation HubA state panel named mCLASS one of three recommended tools for screening K-2 students for reading difficulties, for use from the 2025-26 school year. It is offered in English and Spanish.
Screening laws create recurring, required purchases. Being on the short list in the largest state matters more than any single district win.
- 05Neutral
It is hiring a CIO and a VP of enterprise transformation.
Amplify Ashby postings, Sep 2026Both roles were posted in Sep 2026. The VP role partners with the COO on a next-generation operating model; a product posting says the product org is going through a significant operational transformation.
A company rewiring how it works, with AI tools named in the CIO brief. Programs like this sometimes come with reorganizations; none has been announced.
- 06Neutral
Remote is real for most roles, with field exceptions.
Amplify careers page and Ashby postings, Nov 3, 2026The careers page says remote first, Brooklyn based. On Nov 3, 35 of 36 Ashby postings were tagged remote, but a California sales role requires living in territory with 60-70% travel, and the VP transformation role asks for regular NYC office time.
Office, product and engineering jobs look genuinely remote. Sales, coaching and some senior roles carry travel or office expectations the remote tag does not show.
- 07Neutral
It buys small companies to fill product gaps.
Amplify release, Apr 3, 2024Amplify bought math assessment startup Math ANEX in Apr 2024 (terms not disclosed) to power mCLASS Math, after buying the Desmos curriculum in 2022.
Both the 2021 and 2023 raises named acquisitions as a use of funds. Expect more tuck-ins rather than big mergers.
Product is paid 26% under market.
We save every company's roles, pay by team and level, AI share and churn every day, so each month this page can say more. Sparklines use their own scale.
Can AI agents do business with Amplify?
We checked the agent payment programs, developer docs and site rules an AI assistant would meet.
Readable, not actionable. AI tools can read its public site, but no agent can query, buy or act inside its products.
Still Remote read- YesA site guide that AI tools can readamplify.com/llms.txt exists, generated by its Yoast SEO plugin, listing program and resource pages. No llms.txt on the my.amplify.com login site.checked Nov 3, 2026
- YesLets AI crawlers read its siteNo OpenAI, Anthropic or Google AI bots named. robots.txt blocks Baiduspider, Bytespider and WoroProspectingBot, sets a 10-second crawl delay, and blocks PDFs and uploads for everyone.checked Nov 3, 2026
- Not foundAn MCP server or public API for agentsNo /.well-known/mcp.json (404) and no MCP, ChatGPT app or Claude connector announcement found.checked Nov 3, 2026
- YesAI features inside its productsTeacher tools draft caregiver letters, group students and write 10-day intervention plans; writing is auto-scored for teacher review. Student features use speech recognition but not generative AI, per Amplify.Amplify, AI at Amplify page
- YesPublished AI rulesAI governance aligned to the EDSAFE AI Alliance S.A.F.E. benchmarks and the NIST AI Risk Management Framework, with disclosure and human review.Amplify, AI at Amplify page
Where Amplify puts AI to work.
- 1Claude, Glean and Agentforce for staffIts CIO posting (Sep 2026) asks the hire to lead an internal AI Transformation team and own the rollout of Glean, Claude and Salesforce Agentforce, including vibe-coding for non-coders.Amplify CIO posting, Sep 11, 2026
- 2Built its own speech recognitionIn 2025 Amplify launched an in-house AI speech recognition system to replace Soapbox in mCLASS and Boost Reading, scoring students reading aloud.THE Journal, Jul 22, 2025
As many listings as on Sep 16, led by people.
The signals, and which way they push.
- HeadwindDistricts are spending like it is 2019 again.
ESSER ran out in early 2026 and CoSN says tech budgets are back to pre-pandemic levels.
- HeadwindStates are building their own curriculum.
Texas spent $84M revising its own state-owned version of Amplify's reading program and pays districts to adopt it.
- TailwindScreening laws keep mCLASS in demand.
California requires K-2 reading screening from 2025-26 and approved mCLASS; flat reading scores keep pressure on districts.
- TailwindAdoption cycles reward highly rated programs.
McGraw Hill says standards are revised every six to eight years and California, Florida and Texas swing sales in adoption years. Amplify has five all-green rated programs.
Where Amplify ends up, if we had to bet.
Our calls, not facts. Each one is tied to something that already happened, so you can judge the reasoning.
- 1
Amplify is still private in 2031, with no public listing.
Long shot 16%IPONo filing or banker hire has been reported, and its owners are an impact investor and a family company that have held for years. It publishes no financials, which an IPO would require.
Amplify release, May 2023; news search Nov 3, 2026 - 2
By 2031 Amplify is sold to, or merged with, a private equity owner or a larger publisher.
Coin flip 50%M&AVeritas paid about $2.8B for HMH in 2022, showing buyout appetite for K-12 curriculum. Amplify's lead owner has held since 2015, a long time for any investor.
HMH release, Apr 7, 2022 - 3
Assessment, led by mCLASS reading and math, becomes Amplify's main growth engine.
Likely 72%ProductsmCLASS already screens 4M+ students and sits on state approved lists. Math ANEX was bought to build mCLASS Math.
Amplify data brief, Oct 2026; Math ANEX release - 4
Generative AI reaches student-facing Amplify products, such as voice-based reading tutors.
Likely 72%AIToday only teacher tools use generative AI. Amplify built its own speech recognition and lists conversational tutoring as a use case.
THE Journal, Jul 2025; Amplify AI page - 5
At least one more large state follows Texas and builds its own free core curriculum.
Coin flip 50%CompetitionTexas set aside $243M to support Bluebonnet adoption. Open licences on programs like CKLA make adapting them easier.
Texas Tribune, Aug 28, 2025
Read by the Still Remote research agent on November 3, 2026 from the sources linked on this page. Facts and scenarios only, not investment advice.