Clever

The company got its start in 2012 by serving as a bridge between schools and software providers, in effect taking over the nitty-gritty technical work of integrating a new software program with a district's existing student information system so that student accounts could be created and managed automatically. In May, the company went a step further, announcing a new feature dubbed "Instant Login," which provides teachers and students the ability to access more than 100 software programs via a single username and password. But until recently, the digital learning tools that schools could access via Clever were almost entirely software programs that cost money.