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BOSTON, MA – February 19, 2002 – Outside The Classroom, Inc., the leading provider of online health education tools for colleges, universities, and other markets, announced today the completion of $2 Million in Series C financing lead by Sherbrooke Capital, a health and wellness focused fund located in Newton, MA. Additional investors include Boston’s CommonAngels and AngelHealthcare Investors.
The company also announced that it has been selected as a finalist in the MIT Sloan eBusiness Awards. This annual competition showcases companies that have made outstanding innovations in the world of eBusiness. Winners are determined by a panel of distinguished innovators that, in past years, have included Michael Dell, Bill Porter, Jeff Bezos and the CEOs of Nortel, BellSouth and Intel. Previous winners of the MIT Sloan eBusiness Awards include eBay, Handspring, Healtheon WebMD, UPS, and Palm Inc.
Outside The Classroom is the creator of AlcoholEduSM, the first online course to offer effective, science-based alcohol education designed for the 12 million students on American college campuses. With over 10 million students reporting alcohol and/or drug use in the past year, AlcoholEduSM answers the increasingly urgent demands of students, parents and administrators for tools that effectively combat high-risk drinking.
“Alcohol is responsible for nearly every negative consequence on the college campus, ranging from academic morbidity and property damage to sexual assault and death. We’ve created a product that strikes at the heart of these issues. Success for us means not only making money, but saving lives. And, when you’ve got a business like that, it’s tough not to get fired up,” said Brandon Busteed, Founder and CEO of Outside The Classroom. “Most companies talk about building value; we’re out there doing it – for students, schools, the broader community, and ultimately our investors.”
In addition to engaging educational content developed by the leading authorities in alcohol education, AlcoholEduSM is the only online education resource to offer complete assessment of students’ attitudes and behaviors both before and after taking the course – providing the critical information educators need to measure the effectiveness of the program while producing fact-based guidance for liability reduction. Preliminary results, for instance, indicate that AlcoholEdu decreases “binge” drinking rates by nearly 20%.
Outside The Classroom also offers TheHealthSurveySM, an online survey and assessment tool that uncovers student attitudes and behaviors related to alcohol, tobacco, drugs, eating disorders, sex and sexual assault, violence and mental health. TheHealthSurveySM provides the data schools need to accurately assess student awareness of and needs for prevention, education, and counseling resources. The data also serves as an invaluable resource for the development of prevention efforts, such as “social norms” marketing.
"We are excited to be Outside The Classroom's first institutional investors," said John Giannuzzi, Managing General Partner of Sherbrooke Capital. "The company has already established itself as a strong leader in health education and we look forward to leveraging our health industry expertise and partnerships to help accelerate company growth."
About Outside The Classroom
Outside The Classroom (www.outsidetheclassroom.com), a Boston-based health education company, was founded to address critical behavioral health issues. In addition to the college market, Outside The Classroom provides world-class online health education for individuals and institutions ranging from parents and health educators to high schools, corporations, and the armed forces.
Outside The Classroom is a partner to many prominent organizations including MADD, Education Development Center’s National Center for College Health and Safety, Security On Campus, and the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA).
About Sherbrooke Capital
Sherbrooke Capital Health and Wellness, L.P. is a private venture capital fund with $100+ million of committed equity capital, investing in privately-held product, technology and service companies within the rapidly-growing health and wellness industry. Sherbrooke Capital focuses on investing in the most dynamic segments of this industry, including prevention and self-care oriented diagnostics and healthcare-related consumer products and services.
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