Pear Deck raises $500,000 in seed funding

Iowa City-based startup Pear Deck secured $500,000 in seed funding, the company announced Wednesday.

Pear Deck is an application that aims to make classroom lectures more interesting through interactive presentations.

The funding round was led by Digital Cowboy Ventures with participation from several angel investors.

The company also received $25,000 of award funding and $100,000 in matching funds from the Iowa Economic Development Authority's Acceleration Fund.

Pear Deck was founded in January 2014 and publicly launched in August of this year. Riley Eynon-Lynch, Pear Deck CEO and co-founder, said the funding will be used to grow his team and expand into new markets.

'With Pear Deck, we're helping teachers hear from every single student and understand where every student stands in real-time, during class,” said Eynon-Lynch. 'We're seeing teachers who use Pear Deck for over 2,000 student interactions a week.”

Pear Deck has been used in more than 4,500 schools and its active users are growing 30 percent per month, according to the Iowa City Area Development Group.