Newsela

EducationUSA

New to Unitard

✂️ Markdown

🦄
Became a unicorn
Feb 2021
📈
Peak valuation
$1.08 Billion ’21
💔
Became a Unitard
~2024
💸
Last valuation
—

Current status

Private; written down by mutual-fund holders in SEC filings (marks below).

The rise & fall

5 moments · 2013–2024

The key moments, with employee sentiment along the way.

2013

Founded to level the news

K-12 news articles rewritten at multiple reading levels, so every kid in class can read the same story.

Wikipedia

Feb 2021

The peak: a Series D just over $1B$1.08B

A $100M round lands at the height of the pandemic ed-tech boom, making Newsela a unicorn.

TechCrunch

2022–24

From the inside · Glassdoor reviews, 2022–24

Glassdoor reviews from 2022-24 traced the unwind from inside: employees described a pandemic hiring spree giving way to several layoff rounds into late 2023, a new CEO and near-constant reorgs, and longtime staff lamenting how far the culture had drifted from the mission-driven workplace they first joined.

2024

Slips out of the club

Classrooms return in person, engagement fades, and mutual-fund holders mark their stakes below $1B in SEC filings. Still private, still in schools.

SEC filing

Today

Still private — the funds keep marking

Franklin Small-Mid Cap Growth VIP Fund marks it at $18.05/share · -6% from its peak mark · as of Mar 2026

SEC NPORT-P

💬 entries paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗; dated facts carry their source.

How it happened

Newsela is an education-technology company whose leveled K-12 reading articles are widely used by teachers. It was last valued near $1.08B (Series D, 2021) at the height of the pandemic edtech boom; as schools returned to in-person learning, engagement and revenue slid, and it fell out of the $1B unicorn club while remaining private.

Mutual-fund markdowns

3 funds · SEC NPORT-P

How U.S. mutual funds fair-value this still-private company in their quarterly SEC filings.

Per-share mark from peak

-6%

Franklin Small-Mid Cap Growth VIP Fund

$19.18 → $18.05

as of Mar 2026

Fund	$/sh	From peak	As of
Franklin Small-Mid Cap Growth VIP Fund	$18.05	-6%	Mar 2026
Franklin Small Cap Growth Fund	$17.92	-1%	Apr 2026
Franklin Small-Mid Cap Growth Fund	$17.92	-1%	Apr 2026

Source: SEC EDGAR Form NPORT-P (Level-3 fair-value marks). Per-share marks reflect the fund’s own valuation of a specific share class and aren’t a company-wide valuation. Last refreshed Jun 2026.

Source: SEC NPORT-P fund marks (below); peak per primary round

Founder

Matthew Gross
Founder & CEO (now Exec Chair)
Still there — Founder & Director, Audit Committee MemberLinkedIn ↗