Flipgrid, a social education app developed at the U of M that aims to engage students in classroom discussions, was recently acquired by Microsoft.
The Minneapolis startup was conceptualized by Charlie Miller during his time as an associate professor at the University of Minnesota. He and others eventually bought the rights for Flipgrid and spun it out of the school in 2015 to focus on growing the service, which allows educators to compact lesson plans into short video clips for their students to interact with.
Early last year, Flipgrid said more and more classrooms from around the world were flocking to its app. Over a 12-month span ending January 2017, the company counted an 800 percent growth in new users, which followed a 450 percent increase in user sign-ups over the same period a year ago. In January 2017 alone, Flipgrid said an estimated 150,000 new students from 136 countries had joined its service.
The full story was published in June, 2018, in Twin Cities Business.