Learning Resources

Family Engagement Platform Acquired by Eagle Eye Networks CEO

• By Sri Ravipati
• 12/01/16

LivingTree, a K–12 family engagement platform, has been acquired by Dean Drako, CEO of cloud-based video surveillance company Eagle Eye Networks and former founder and CEO of cybersecurity firm Barracuda Networks.

Launched in 2012, LivingTree provides a secure, community-wide platform that “includes everyone in the conversation regardless of preferred language or social status,” according to the company site. The platform provides automatic translation for more than 100 languages, enabling teachers, parents and students to easily share classroom updates, photos, files, calendar events and more. A typical LivingTree classroom has 120 interactions per family per month. In the last year, the company has doubled its user base and seen 4 million online conversations.

"Parent-teacher engagement is vital to student success,” said Drako, now LivingTree’s owner and executive chairman, in a statement. “LivingTree is the strongest platform I’ve found to interactively connect teachers with parents in an organized yet secure way. The fact that LivingTree doubled its user base in the past 12 months and continues to onboard new schools each week demonstrates that they are meeting a critical community need.”

Drako will use his “extensive business, cloud software and cybersecurity expertise to scale LivingTree and continue to deliver a robust, reliable and cybersecure solution for school and family engagement,” according to the blog post announcement.  

To learn more, visit the LivingTree site.