FRIDAY, DEC. 4, 2020 | IN THIS ISSUE
• Pear Deck merges with L.A.-based edtech company
• New fund to help homeowners with derecho recovery
• In the CBJ: Rural economy continues to struggle
• Financial startup receives $27M in seed funding
• Iowans could lose unemployment benefits
• Corridor events, KCRG-TV9 headlines and First Alert Forecast
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Pear Deck merges with L.A.-based edtech company |
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Pear Deck, an educational technology company based in Iowa City offering a web-based application to K-12 schools and teachers, has announced a strategic merger with GoGuardian, a Los Angeles-based edtech company.
The merger was announced Nov. 19. As part of the deal, Pear Deck co-founder and Chief Educator Michal Eynon-Lynch will join the GoGuardian board of directors. Other operational specifics of the deal, including the name of the merged company, weren’t immediately available.
“As we began getting to know the GoGuardian team, we quickly realized how closely aligned we are in our mission, vision and drive to support educators,” Pear Deck representatives said in a release. “Pear Deck and GoGuardian share the belief that we need to leverage technology thoughtfully to help students engage in the world with reason, honesty, and empathy. We’ve both been working on the same problem - how to make school safe, engaging and equitable for every student — but from different perspectives. Together, we can advance our shared mission and create new solutions that help educators do their best work in environments where students can thrive.”
Founded by educators in 2014, Pear Deck is used in more than 17,000 schools and by 8 million educators and students around the world to improve equity, academic achievement and classroom culture. Pear Deck translates proven learning science into simple, effective tools.
GoGuardian, also founded in 2014, partners with more than 10,000 schools to engage with and protect over 10 million students across the United States. The company offers a suite of solutions to help educators identify learning patterns, protect students from harmful and distracting content, and support students who are at risk of self-harm and suicide.
The merger between GoGuardian and Pear Deck comes in a historic year of change for education. In the wake of school closures, both companies were quickly recognized by school leaders as essential tools to engage students not only in the classroom but in remote and hybrid learning environments.
“As 2020 comes to an end, the Pear Deck team will have increased market penetration over three times last year, expanding as needed to be a bright spot in a dark time for educators,” Curt Nelson, president and CEO of the Entrepreneurial Development Center (EDC) in Cedar Rapids, said this week in an email. “This growth and product strength put them on the radar of other companies and investors in the education space. The opportunity to merge with another company with similar values, to take Pear Deck to yet another level globally, is the result of the hard work by all.”
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New fund to help homeowners with derecho recovery |
A new revolving loan fund has been established to help Cedar Rapids and Linn County homeowners repair homes that were damaged in the Aug. 10 derecho.
The fund is part of the housing repair program called Providing Assistance to Community Homeowners (PATCH), a collaboration of funders and nonprofit organizations that has recently began making minor repairs on homes of qualifying homeowners, using volunteer labor.
Cedar Rapids Bank & Trust provided a lead gift of $100,000 to establish the fund, and the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation and United Way of East Central Iowa have each contributed $50,000, totaling $200,000 available for loans.
Funding gaps and timeline challenges due to delays in FEMA assistance or insurance payments have been identified by area homeowners as barriers to recovery.
“Many of our neighbors need the dollars now to be able to get necessary home repairs started,” said Kristin Roberts, President and CEO of United Way of East Central Iowa. “We know this revolving loan fund will allow our community members to start critical work before winter arrives in full force.”
Qualifying homeowners can apply for up to $15,000 from the fund, which is administered by the Housing Fund for Linn County and the Neighborhood Finance Corporation. Participants can borrow from the revolving loan fund until their FEMA or insurance benefits arrive, then pay back the fund. Some loans that fill gaps not covered by insurance or FEMA may also be forgivable, to offer a financial boost to qualifying homeowners.
A grant from the Community Foundation’s Disaster Recovery Fund is funding a program administrator to oversee the program. Associates from TrueNorth are also participating by helping PATCH participants navigate their insurance and FEMA claims, payments and questions.
PATCH is funded by the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation, United Way of East Central Iowa, and Alliant Energy Foundation, and implemented by Linn County Community Services, Housing Fund for Linn County, Matthew 25, Waypoint, HACAP, Cedar Valley Habitat for Humanity, Neighborhood Finance Corporation, ECICOG, City of Cedar Rapids, and the City of Marion.
Homeowners can access PATCH and the revolving loan fund by contacting Waypoint at (319) 366-7999.
IMAGE: James Klein, President of Cedar Rapids Bank & Trust, along with other CRB&T employees, present a check to Kristen Roberts, president and CEO of United Way of East Central Iowa and Les Garner, President and CEO of the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation, for a new revolving loan fund for homeowners impacted by the Aug. 10 derecho. CREDIT GCRCF
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In the CBJ: Rural economy continues to struggle |
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There continues to be much discussion and analysis of the urban-rural divide after the November election.
President Donald Trump and U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst won 91 of 93 rural counties in Iowa, while President-elect Joe Biden and Democratic senatorial candidate Theresa Greenfield won the state’s urban counties, including Johnson and Linn.
The rural versus urban divide continues to intensify, it seems, as rural communities shrink and larger communities continue to grow.
According to an analysis by the Washington-based Economic Innovation Group, which advocates for policies to lessen geographic inequalities, Mr. Biden won rural Midwestern counties that had seen population growth averaging 1.8% over the past 10 years, while the counties Mr. Trump won saw an average population decline of 2.5%.
This divide is seen most starkly in politics, but the economics is what is providing the true underpinnings, as illustrated by two new economic surveys. If elected leaders really want to bridge this seemingly deep political gap, they first need to better understand that smaller, rural communities are worse off than their more urban counterparts – a perilous trend that has little sign of abating.
One survey, Creighton University’s Rural Mainstreet Index (RMI), declined in October, marking its first decline since April, when the COVID-19 was at its first peak. The index is based on monthly surveys of bank CEOs across 10 ag and energy states, focusing on roughly 200 rural communities with an average population of 1,300. These executives are in an ideal position to provide perspective on these communities and their customers’ level of confidence.
The overall index sank below growth neutral to 46.8, from October’s mark of 53.2. A reading of 50 is considered growth neutral.
This contrasts significantly with markedly less-rural focused Mid-America Business Conditions Index, also tracked by Creighton University, which advanced for its fifth straight month to its highest level since 2004.
The October Business Conditions Index, which ranges between 0-100, increased to 70.2 from September’s mark of 65.1. It is based on surveys of purchasing managers across a nine-state region including Iowa.
“Creighton’s monthly survey results have mirrored the national manufacturing survey results indicating that the manufacturing sector has been expanding at a very healthy pace since sinking to a post-2008 recession low in April. Even so, current output in the regional and U.S. manufacturing sectors remains below pre-COVID-19 levels. More than three of four supply managers reported negative COVID-19 impacts,” said Ernie Goss, director of Creighton University’s Economic Forecasting Group and the Jack A. MacAllister Chair in Regional Economics in the Heider College of Business.
Starting to better understand these discrepancies will be a big step toward unifying our deeply divided country – something that we’re hopeful Mr. Biden will endeavor to do in his administration.
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Financial startup receives $27M in seed funding |
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Moov, which offers an open source platform for financial institutions to quickly deploy basic financial service solutions, reached its first significant milestone three months ago when it announced a $5.5 million seed round led by Bain Capital.
“Today, we are thrilled to announce our oversubscribed $27 million Series A round led by Angela Strange, Peter Levine, and the team at a16z, with participation from Gokul Rajaram,” Moov Co-Founder and CEO Wade Arnold said in a blog post, adding that existing investors Abstract Ventures, Bain Capital, Canapi Ventures, Commerce Ventures, Gradient Ventures, RRE Ventures, Uncorrelated Ventures, Veridian Credit Union and 27 angel investors had also participated in the round.
“We will use the funds to expand our team, further develop our enterprise offerings and double-down on setting the standard for open collaboration on financial protocols,” Mr. Arnold said. “We’ll fast-track our development of other payment primitives and introduce financial institutions servicing fintechs and software companies across industries to the
ways Moov can simplify and improve their financial products.”
Moov started as an open-source movement in 2017, led by Mr. Arnold and Bob Smith, both veteran fintech founders of Banno. Its platform allows banks and credit unions, SaaS companies, and fintech providers to seamlessly receive funds, store value and remit payments. Its protocols offer the first de facto standard for embedded payments infrastructure offered publicly.
“We’re not far from a reality where any technology company could be a fintech,” the company said in a press release announcing the new Series A funding. “Tapping into banking services without becoming a bank or fully pivoting to a fintech company is possible and becoming vital for all types and sizes of organizations. Moov is bringing that reality to life.”
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Iowans could lose unemployment benefits
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More than 44,000 Iowans who have exhausted their state unemployment benefits face a severe financial crisis if a federal safety net is allowed to expire in late December, economists say.
As the Des Moines Business Record reports, the federal CARES Act went into effect in March, providing additional jobless benefits to workers, including those who had used all of their state jobless benefits. But the programs, which had been extended, are set to expire on Dec. 26 unless another stimulus bill is passed by Congress.
In Iowa, 44,592 people's state unemployment benefits ran out in July through October, the most current state data shows. Thousands of others likely lost benefits in November, although state data was not available. Those Iowans – and millions of Americans – will be without any income if the federal jobless benefits are not extended.
“Congress’s inability to enact timely continued assistance to distressed households across a range of categories, not just unemployment assistance, is more than political failure, it is a social and economic failure,” David Swenson, an Iowa State University economist, wrote in an email.
The federal aid has helped sustain families whose wage-earners lost jobs for pandemic-related reasons, Swenson wrote. Without the additional assistance, “people will be forced to run up credit card debt to cover essentials, further limiting those families’ ability to recover once the economy starts hiring again.
“Foreclosures and evictions will rise as people get further and further in arrears in their mortgages or rents.”
Read the full story here.
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Short Term Event Planner
Dec. 8
Cybersecurity Symposium, by Corridor Business Journal, 8-10 a.m., online. Industry experts will discuss the current threat landscape, incident response, and tools and tactics to mitigate risks for your company and customers. Keynote by Kenneth Schmutz, supervisory special agent, FBI Omaha, Cyber Task Force. Free. For more information or to register, visit corridorbusiness.com/events/ or contact Ashley Moore at ashley@corridorbusiness.com.
Corridor Corporate Games Informational Webinar, by Corridor Corporate Games, 10 a.m., online. This session is open to companies interested in learning more about the Corporate Games, a company based competition held June 1-July 31. Free. For more information, visit bit.ly/3eRQB9C.
Point of Sale and Credit Card Processing Systems, by Iowa Center for Economic Success, noon-1 p.m., online. Learn the benefits, common mistakes and hidden fees associated with a credit card payment services contract. Free. To register, visit bit.ly/3g5HQK2.
Loan Modifications Discussion, by CLA, 1 p.m., online. Discuss the impact of loan modifications, including multiple modifications to a financial institution’s credit risk ratings. Free. To register, visit bit.ly/2UG8AqD.
Dec. 9
1 Million Cups, by 1MC Cedar Rapids, 8:30 a.m., online. Join for community connections and presentations by entrepreneurs, established companies, experts and more. Free. For more information, visit facebook.com/1MCICR.
1 Million Cups, by 1MC Iowa City, 9 a.m., online. Join for community connections and presentations by entrepreneurs, established companies, experts and more. Free. For more information, visit facebook.com/1MillionCupsIC.
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These news items are provided by KCRG-TV9
A man and a woman are facing charges after being arrested near Lindale Mall after a high-speed chase and multiple carjacking attempts. Christopher Daniel Taylor, 38, and Courtney Marea Smith, 30, were arrested on Thursday afternoon and facing multiple charges. According to police, at 1:32 P.M., Marion Police were alerted to a vehicle pursuit on Blairs Ferry Road heading eastbound into Marion. The driver was believed to be Taylor, who was wanted for a parole violation. A short time later a silver 2019 Chevrolet Malibu was found abandoned in the 200-block of 11th Street in Marion. As officers were searching the area, they were notified of a red truck was stolen from the 1200-block of A Avenue by a suspect matching Taylor’s description. Police say the suspect fled from police after picking up an acquaintance, later identified as Smith, near A Avenue and South 15th Street. Read more here.
A day after setting a new record for single-day reported COVID-19 deaths, the Iowa Department of Public Health reported another record setting number. Over the last 24 hours, the state reported an additional 84 COVID-19 deaths and another 2,901 positive tests. As of 10:30 a.m. today, the state’s data shows a total of 239,693 Iowans have tested positive for COVID-19, and 2,603 Iowans have died. According to the data the state makes available, the positivity rate over the last 24 hours was 38.2%. Hospitalizations continue to decline in the state. Data from the state’s website currently shows a total of 1,000 Iowans are in the hospital with the virus. That’s the lowest number of COVID-19 hospitalizations in nearly a month. Of those hospitalized, 123 were admitted in the last 24 hours, 209 are in the ICU and 128 are on ventilators. IDPH also reported a total of 152,331 Iowans have recovered from COVID-19. This comes as the state is preparing for its first shipments of the COVID-19 vaccines later this month. In total, the state will receive more than 170,000 dozes of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines over the course of December. But the timetable is subject to change due to the fact that both are still currently under emergency review.
These news items are provided by KCRG-TV9
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Your KCRG-TV9 First Alert Forecast |
Our quiet weather pattern continues through the end of the week and into the weekend. Highs stay in the low 40s through Saturday. There will be a few more clouds on Sunday, with highs in the upper 30s. |
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