Alumnus Jon Chapman MBA ’07 Talks Raising $190M for His EdTech Startup EverFi on Bootstrapped

The Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship produces Bootstrapped, a podcast featuring founders, investors and serial entrepreneurs. The podcast is hosted by Elana Fine, Executive Director of the Dingman Center, and Joe Bailey, Associate Research Professor at the Smith School. Each episode brings a different startup story to life with special guests offering advice and lessons learned on topics that range from fundraising and marketing to team formation and customer acquisition.

On this episode of Bootstrapped, we interviewed alumnus Jon Chapman MBA ’07, Co-Founder and President of EverFi, a leading EdTech company. Jon and his co-founders launched EverFi during the recession of 2008, when they identified an opportunity to teach young adults critical skills such as financial literacy through a gamified educational platform. EverFi’s strategy allows private sector entities ranging from banks like BB&T to professional sports leagues like the NHL and NFL to private label EverFi’s product and partner with EverFi to run educational programs in communities they care about.  In this episode, Jon details how EverFi focused on understanding their clients as well as their end consumers, and how EverFi went from a bootstrapped company in 2008 to raising $190 M in a Series D round in 2017.

Jon has spent most of his career in the education industry working multiple positions during his 11 year tenure at Kaplan, Inc. Jon received his MBA in Entrepreneurial Studies from the University of Maryland in 2007 and went on to co-found EverFi in 2008 where he now runs the Global Partnerships Division and is responsible for all product development, design and strategy involving some of EverFi’s largest scaled partnerships across North America. 

To listen to this episode and gain further insights into the startup world, subscribe to Dingman Bootstrapped on iTunes or download the episodes on the Dingman Center website.