Virtual Job Shadow ® and Nepris Announce New Company, Pathful Inc. to Form One Comprehensive College and Career Readiness System
Austin TX - Virtual Job Shadow® (VJS), a college & career readiness exploration & planning platform, and Nepris, a college & career readiness live industry connections platform and its entities have been merged to create a new company Pathful Inc. (Austin, TX). Pathful is a full college and career readiness system for students and educators. As a result, the Virtual Job Shadow® and Nepris platforms will also be renamed – Pathful Explore (formerly VJS) and Pathful Connect (formerly Nepris). The new company is backed by PSG, a leading growth equity firm that partners with software and technology-enabled services companies to help accelerate their growth. Pathful creates a powerful system that provides educators – CTE educators, work-based learning coordinators, general education teachers, special education teachers, and school counselors – with a variety of resources they can use to help their students achieve success in their future careers. For everyone involved in shaping a student’s future, Pathful is a comprehensive college and career readiness system – now, one place for a more insightful, impactful, and meaningful college & career readiness experience.
Jennie Kristoffersen, Chief Executive Officer at Pathful states, “We believe that the pandemic increased investment in many edtech platforms which placed more work on teachers. Our goal is to consolidate and make implementation easier and more effective. “With Pathful, educators and students can access quality career exploration and planning tools, work-based learning, real-world career experiences, and career assessments – all in one place.” continues Kristoffersen.
Pathful is on a mission to change the way we think about college and career readiness and offers the ability to connect industry professionals directly to the classroom. Pathful becomes an integrated system that couples student-directed content with live industry connections across the entire college and career readiness journey.
“PSG looks to partner with founders and CEOs that we believe are motivated to accelerate growth and product adoption within large markets,” says Tom Reardon, Managing Director at PSG. “We are excited to have found an opportunity to work with Jennie, who has shown herself as an innovator within EdTech, to bring together two industry-leading products and create a single platform for college and career readiness.”
The entire Pathful system provides a suite of platforms that integrates exploration and planning tools, Life Skills resources, assessments and live, virtual engagements with real professionals and potential employers to help students make smarter decisions about their future.
“We envision a classroom where industry engagement is not once a year during career days but every day in math, science, ELA and social studies classrooms. Pathful aims to address several gaps between what skills various industries need and what students are learning by providing the real-world relevance,” states Sabari Raja, Chief Strategy Officer at Pathful.
For back-to-school 2022, Pathful also introduces a new product, Pathful Planner, which allows school counselors and administrators to develop individualized graduation plans for students (grades 6-12) to help guide their education, career, and employment goals while meeting graduation requirements across the district.
The Pathful platforms and products for a full college & career readiness system include:
SYSTEM
Pathful (complete system)
PLATFORM NAMES
- Pathful Explore (formerly VirtualJobShadow®) A college and career planning and exploration platform that helps students explore career paths and plan;
- Pathful Connect (formerly Nepris) A live industry connections platform that matches educators and learners with a network of industry professionals;
- Pathful Junior (formerly VJS Junior) A K-5 career awareness platform;
PRODUCTS
Pathful Planner A 6-12 course planner, releases Back to School 2022.
“This is a merger of two tools popular with our educators that we believe will make complete sense to district leaders and educators,” said Twinkle Familiare, CTE Project Program Manager at Seattle Public Schools. “It is a combination that aims to make teachers’ lives easier and allows for a more comprehensive and thoughtful approach to planning for life after high school.”
With a network of industry professionals and a video library of engaging content, Pathful delivers a full college and career readiness system to students and educators. Learn all about what Pathful has in store at www.pathful.com.
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About Pathful Inc. Pathful aims to help students decide what they want to be, what they need to learn, and who they need to know to prepare for life beyond the classroom. Now, there is one place to get college and career awareness, planning, exploration, and live connections for a more insightful, impactful, and meaningful experience. Pathful’s tagline is Your Full College & Career Readiness System. Now Pathful. Currently headquartered in Austin, TX, Pathful is backed by growth equity firm PSG.
About PSG
PSG is a growth equity firm that partners with software and technology-enabled services companies to help them navigate transformational growth, capitalize on strategic opportunities and build strong teams. Having backed more than 110 companies and facilitated over 400 add-on acquisitions, PSG brings extensive investment experience, deep expertise in software and technology, and a firm commitment to collaborating with management teams. Founded in 2014, PSG operates out of offices in Boston, Kansas City, London, Paris, Madrid and Tel-Aviv. To learn more about PSG, visit www.psgequity.com.