Edsby


Edsby is an educational technology company headquartered in Toronto, Canada. It is the developer and publisher of the Edsby platform, a web-based K-12 learning management system and analytics platform, and Unison, an educational data aggregation product. Edsby aims to provide school districts, state governments, and central governments with stronger student, teacher, and parent engagement, along with better outcomes and clearer insights into learning.
Edsby is partnered with Microsoft and provides its services on the Microsoft Azure cloud service worldwide. The company was named Microsoft's Education Partner of the Year in 2019.

History

Edsby was founded in April 2010 by Steve Asbury, Jon Asbury, and Scott Welch, the three founders and architects of the software application FirstClass, and co-worker John Myers. After it gained popularity in the 1990s, millions of students and teachers used this software tool with messaging and collaboration features, and it is recognized as one of the earliest learning management systems.
Edsby is privately held, and in 2014, the company acknowledged a funding round of around two million dollars. In 2020, it received a $5.3 million Series A investment. In conjunction with the raise, investor Chris Besse, former CEO of educational technology company FreshGrade and former managing director of K-12 at education publisher Nelson Education, joined the company as Chief Commercial Officer.

Products

Edsby platform

The Edsby platform is developed for K–12 school districts, private schools, and governments. It provides online social learning tools connected to their existing systems, including grade books, attendance-taking, parent-teacher communication features, classroom management, content management, and social classroom interaction. Mobile applications are available for iOS and Android.
Value to K-12 stakeholders:
  • Students: Check grades, homework, schedules, and collaborate in class.
  • Teachers: Share materials, perform assessments, record attendance, and communicate with parents.
  • Parents: Track performance, workload, and stay connected with schools.
  • School Leaders: Spot at-risk students, manage approvals, and generate report cards.
  • District Admins: Access real-time student success data and plan resources effectively.
In September 2013, Hillsborough County Public Schools deployed Edsby to its teachers, 220,000 students and their parents. In 2015, other district-wide deployments included 3,450 staff and 34,000 students at Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board. In 2016, it was adopted by 35,000 students and staff at Greater Essex County District School Board. In 2017, it deployed at York Region District School Board, a 125,000-student district.
In 2024, the Ministry of Education, Science and Youth in the country of Georgia selected Edsby as the national learning management and administration platform for its 800,000 students in a program supported by the World Bank.
In 2025, Edsby introduced an AI Teacher Assistant, designed to reduce educator workload by helping with tasks such as lesson planning, rubric creation, feedback generation, and personalized student support. According to MindShare Learning Chief Learning Strategist Timothy Gard, the functionality is “poised to set a precedent for how AI can be leveraged to enhance learning while supporting educators.”

Unison

In March 2019, the New Zealand Ministry of Education contracted with Edsby to develop a national student information-sharing exchange called Te Rito. Edsby's technology, spun out in 2022 as a separate product called Unison, synchronizes the country's thousands of student information systems, “securely storing and sharing information in a transparent and trusted way” for 800,000 New Zealand learners, their families, and communities across the country's 2,500 schools and their 2,500 discrete student management systems.

Awards

In 2025, Edsby was named Best K-12 education LMS for the fourth year in a row by The Tech Edvocate Awards.