Doctors, therapists, yoga teachers have gone virtual. Why not special education teachers? Heldfond’s New York–based edtech startup, Parallel Learning, uses its software to connect more than 100 school districts with 150 licensed special ed professionals including speech pathologists, social workers and therapists. “We tailor our services for students to reach their goals. It’s a very personalized approach,” says Heldfond, who was diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD at 7 years old. Her software helps schools save time and money by automating assessment tests and tedious state-mandated paperwork. Heldfond launched the company in 2021 and has since raised $22.8 million in funding from investors including Tiger Global and Obvious Ventures.
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00:02 - Diana, thank you so much for being here.
00:05 - Thank you for having me.
00:06 - Of course, so to start, please tell me
00:09 about what your company Parallel Learning does.
00:11 - So we provide both software and services
00:14 to school districts around the country.
00:17 We work specifically
00:17 with their special education department.
00:19 So in K through 12 districts, you have general education
00:22 and then you have special education,
00:24 which is about roughly 15% of students
00:26 who usually have a learning or thinking difference,
00:29 mental health challenge.
00:30 And we basically staff school psychologists,
00:33 speech therapists, special ed teachers,
00:35 a whole host of different professionals
00:37 who work directly with students to make sure that,
00:40 even this most complex students are set up
00:42 for success in the district.
00:43 - I wanna hear about the why.
00:46 Tell me about your founding story, how this came about.
00:50 - Well, I'll start with, I have dyslexia and ADHD.
00:52 So I fall very squarely into the population of students
00:54 that we now work with here at Parallel
00:56 and was lucky enough to have access
00:59 to a lot of resources growing up.
01:00 My mom in particular was very on top of things,
01:04 made sure that I really reaped the benefits
01:05 of early detection and early intervention for my challenges
01:09 and was diagnosed when I was seven years old,
01:11 which is a very unique story.
01:12 Most kids are years behind in core academic subjects
01:15 or struggling with very severe mental health challenges
01:18 before anyone really intervenes on their behalf.
01:20 And so with that, I was extremely motivated
01:22 by my own experience to kind of recreate my reality
01:25 at scale for more students
01:26 and was also paired with the start of the pandemic
01:29 when so many students, schools were struggling,
01:31 but general education online, nevertheless,
01:34 special ed students were just simply
01:36 not getting served at all
01:38 and was extremely concerned to see dire circumstances.
01:42 And that was kind of ultimate culmination
01:45 for jumping into Parallel.
01:46 I've been really excited to partner
01:48 with some amazing clinicians in the space, operators,
01:51 engineers to really bring Parallel to life.
01:54 Talk to me about how many students and educators you serve
01:57 and how that's grown over time.
01:59 - Yeah, it's grown a lot, very quickly.
02:02 So we started actually working with school districts
02:05 just over a year ago.
02:06 So prior to that, we were actually serving families
02:09 who were actually not getting served
02:10 within the school districts
02:11 or were looking for additional services.
02:14 And that business was fantastic and growing also very rapidly
02:18 that districts came to us and said,
02:20 we actually desperately need your services as well.
02:23 And so that gave rise in spring of 2022
02:26 of when we started deciding
02:27 to work with school districts directly.
02:29 That's actually now 100% of our business.
02:31 It's been an absolute joy to work with districts
02:35 across the country.
02:35 We're in 15 states at this point,
02:37 serving thousands of students per month,
02:40 doing both psychological assessments, speech assessments,
02:43 mental health assessments,
02:44 and then also doing the kind of ongoing services.
02:48 So things like speech therapy,
02:49 special ed teaching and so on.
02:51 So really becoming this kind of full stop partner,
02:54 I should say, for school districts.
02:55 - Tell me about your fundraising journey.
03:03 What's that been like for you
03:04 and how much have you raised so far?
03:07 - It's been a really exciting journey.
03:09 It's amazing to see how many institutional investors
03:13 ultimately support our mission
03:16 and really wanna see Parallel grow.
03:17 I'm a solo founder,
03:19 so fundraising has been something that has
03:21 fully fallen on my plate.
03:23 And with that, we've gotten a lot of traction.
03:25 So we've now raised about 30 million in total
03:28 from some of really the top investors out there.
03:31 Tiger Global, Obvious Ventures,
03:33 Rethink, Impact Fund, just led a small round.
03:37 We've been really lucky to work with
03:38 kind of investors of all different backgrounds,
03:41 both from the more impact-centric investors
03:43 who have more education,
03:45 more healthcare-specific experience
03:46 to the kind of big growth funds
03:48 and really see it from all sides.
03:50 So it's an amazing opportunity to have
03:52 everyone around the table
03:53 and everyone's been highly supportive
03:56 of making Parallel what it is today.
03:58 - One last question for you.
04:02 What would you like your legacy to be?
04:04 - I think as a founder in this space,
04:08 you have to say it's got a mission element, right?
04:11 Like obviously everyone that works for Parallel,
04:14 it's great that we're a venture-backed company
04:16 and we're growing quickly.
04:17 And like the business success is part of it,
04:20 but I think more than anything,
04:22 that actually means that we've done really
04:24 a lot of good in the world
04:26 and that we've really helped change the trajectory
04:28 for students just like myself.
04:31 That like, frankly, if I did not have access
04:33 to resources that I did early on,
04:34 I would not be sitting here today.
04:37 I would not have the confidence for that.
04:38 I would not have that basic skillset.
04:40 With that in mind, I think that's probably
04:42 like the biggest motivation is how do I really, you know,
04:46 hit the point where I feel like we've helped
04:48 as many students as we possibly can.
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