Procurement

New Online Education Marketplace To Launch in Early 2016

• By Michael Hart
• 12/10/15

The founder of The Princeton Review and 2U will launch an Amazon-like online marketplace for education products and services early next year. Noodle Markets will also provide school district administrators with tools to streamline procurement processes such as requests for proposal (RFPs).

John Katzman's Noodle Companies will open the free marketplace to K-12 educators, according to a release from the company, and make it easier to connect buyers and sellers.

Katzman, who founded The Princeton Review, said, "Noodle Markets will help the best education companies and tools stand out and will remove friction from the buying process. This is a win for education across the board."

CEO and chief product architect will be Nicole Neal, who was most recently president of the Education Solutions Group at CORE Education Consulting and Solutions and previously senior vice president of major accounts at Pearson Education.

"We have the opportunity to change the landscape of how K-12 educational institutions buy products and services," Neal said. "The right products will get into the hands of students and teachers as quickly and efficiently as possible."

While the online platform will not go live until early next year, education suppliers can now register to join it in preparation for the launch.

According to company representatives, procurement officers will save time and increase competition for their RFPs by using Noodle Markets' bid creation and communication platform. Likewise, vendors will have a uniform bidding process available to them, allowing them to connect efficiently with schools and districts.

"Our district knows from experience that finding excellent products and digital resources is far too challenging today," said Ken Eastwood, superintendent of the Middleton (NY) City School District. "We look forward to using these tools."