Kamiapp is a fast-growing education technology company that offers a suite of tools to enhance classroom learning and teaching. Their flagship product is a digital classroom app that allows teachers to distribute handouts, collect homework digitally, provide feedback, and communicate with students and parents. Kamiapp was founded in 2013 and has quickly become one of the most widely used education apps, with over 50 million users worldwide. But behind this impressive growth and popular product, who is actually leading the company as CEO?
The Founding of Kamiapp
Kamiapp was founded in 2013 by Hengjie Wang and Allison Song, who both served as co-CEOs for the first few years of the company’s existence. Wang and Song came up with the idea for Kamiapp while they were graduate students at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. As teaching assistants themselves, they saw firsthand how analogue and outdated many classroom processes were, relying heavily on paper handouts and assignments. They envisioned a software solution that could digitize these resources and allow instant distribution to students.
After initially building Kamiapp as a side project during school, Wang and Song decided to pursue it full-time after graduation. They applied to the Y Combinator startup accelerator program and were accepted into the Summer 2013 batch. This provided them with crucial seed funding and mentorship to get Kamiapp off the ground and rapidly iterate on product-market fit.
With this momentum, Kamiapp started to gain users and launched commercially in early 2014. As co-CEOs, Wang and Song split duties in the early years- Wang oversaw the technology and engineering teams, while Song handled marketing, sales, and strategic partnerships. Their complementary skills sets and shared vision allowed Kamiapp to thrive under their joint leadership.
New Leadership in 2016
Kamiapp experienced massive user and revenue growth in its first few years, becoming one of the top apps in both the iOS and Google Play education categories. By 2016, Kamiapp had over 13 million registered users globally. The company had also raised over $2 million in venture capital funding from firms like Learn Capital and Salesforce Ventures.
Given this rapid expansion, Wang and Song decided to re-evaluate the company’s leadership structure. While they had successfully guided Kamiapp from an idea to an industry leader, they felt fresh perspectives from an experienced executive could help take the company to the next level.
In March 2016, Kamiapp announced that Allison Song would be transitioning exclusively to the Chief Strategy Officer role. Hengjie Wang would also step back from daily operations as Chief Technology Officer. They recruited Bob Drummond, former Chief Revenue Officer at education software firm ExamSoft, to become Kamiapp’s new CEO.
Bob Drummond’s Background
Bob Drummond was exactly the type of leader Wang and Song felt could guide Kamiapp through its next growth phase. He had over 15 years of executive experience specifically in education technology. Prior to ExamSoft, he had held senior roles at Blackboard and other edtech companies. This gave him deep industry knowledge and relationships.
As an outside CEO hire, Drummond could also objectively assess Kamiapp’s strategy and structure without any founder bias. He could rein in any unnecessary spending and inject more financial discipline. Lastly, Drummond had experience expanding startups internationally and penetrating school district sales channels- two key priorities for Kamiapp’s future.
Wang and Song’s willingness to step back and recruit an executive like Drummond is exemplary of startup founders putting their company’s interests first. Their trust in Drummond has clearly paid off.
Growth Under CEO Bob Drummond
Since Bob Drummond took over as CEO in 2016, Kamiapp has accelerated its growth and cemented its status as a leading education app worldwide. Some key achievements include:
– User base has grown 5x to over 50 million students and teachers globally
– Added over 1 million new users per month in 2021
– Increased team size from 50 to over 200 employees
– Raised over $30 million in additional venture capital
– Expanded product offerings beyond the core classroom app
– Growing penetration in U.S. K-12 school districts with deals like Chicago Public Schools
– Opening international headquarters in China and Latin America
– Top app download rankings maintained over years
Drummond’s push into the school district sales channel has been particularly impressive. The company’s sales team has secured deals with major districts like New York City, Los Angeles, Houston, Miami-Dade and Chicago. These system-wide deals have put Kami into millions of new classrooms in their key U.S. market.
On the product side, Kamiapp expanded its suite of tools under Drummond to serve more educational use cases. Kami Reading, for example, focuses specifically on literacy instruction. Kami Kids provides a safe environment for younger learners. Most recently, the company released Kami Vision – AI-powered handwriting recognition to grade written work.
These new products build on the popularity of their core classroom app and provide more reasons for schools and teachers to choose Kamiapp. More products also lead to natural user growth as they get exposed to other offerings after onboarding.
Kamiapp’s Future
After nearly 7 years leading Kamiapp, Bob Drummond has proven to be the right CEO to oversee its transition from promising startup to a leading education technology company. Under his leadership, Kamiapp still feels like an innovative, product-focused company but with the operational discipline and execution of a much more mature organization.
As Kamiapp continues expanding in the U.S. and globally, Drummond seems intent on aggressively growing the user base but in a controlled manner. This means entering new markets deliberately, not just chasing user numbers. It also entails building out the internal organization and improving workflows to maintain quality and efficiency.
For a growth-stage company, it can be tempting to move too fast or expand to unsustainable levels. But Drummond’s track record shows he wants to scale Kamiapp responsibly for the long-term. He likely recognizes the huge market potential ahead if they can maintain their current trajectory.
Kamiapp will face challenges as education technology evolves and new competitors emerge. But with Drummond as CEO, the company seems well-positioned to retain its leadership position. Expect to see Kamiapp continue its ascent, bringing powerful learning tools to more and more classrooms worldwide. The foundation is in place for long-term success.
Conclusion
Kamiapp was founded by Hengjie Wang and Allison Song as a solution to outdated paper-based classroom resources. After getting the company off the ground as co-CEOs, they recruited Bob Drummond as CEO in 2016 to oversee Kamiapp’s high-growth phase. Drummond’s background in education technology and experience with startups made him the ideal candidate.
Under Drummond’s leadership as CEO for nearly 7 years now, Kamiapp has scaled tremendously to serve over 50 million users globally. The company has expanded its product offerings, entered new geographies, penetrated key school district sales channels, and maintained impressive growth rates.
As Kamiapp continues maturing, Drummond seems focused on sustaining this growth by building out the team and running the company in a controlled, responsible manner. Kamiapp faces competition, but is positioned better than ever to fulfill its mission of providing technology that enhances classroom learning and teaching. Bob Drummond’s strategic leadership as CEO has been integral to bringing Kamiapp this far, and likely still has much more to accomplish.