By guest blogger Kevin Connors

As many teachers know, at some point in every high schooler’s life, he or she will utter the same, timeless question to a friend: “What was the homework again?”

It is a simple fact of teaching-life.

In an effort to address this and other forms of student “forgetfulness,” San Francisco-based Remind created a smartphone app for teachers to send “reminders” to students and parents.

The ed-tech company, which was founded in 2011, currently has over 1 million teachers and a combined 17 million students and parents signed up for the free app. Investors have taken note of the startup’s growth, as well, and they just awarded the organization $40 million to continue product development and expand domestically and internationally.

Return investor Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers led the Series C financing round. The Social+Capital Partnership and First Round Capital also participated. Remind has now raised a total of $59 million of venture capital, according to CrunchBase.

“Mobile has changed our everyday lives and is now changing how we learn,” John Doerr, founder and partner of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, said in a statement. “Remind’s simple, safe and free messaging app is connecting millions of K-12 teachers, students and parents. We’re thrilled to invest in their hyper growth.”

Teachers download the app and then share a code with students and parents. Once they opt in to receiving messages, teachers can send messages such as homework and room change reminders, photographs from class activities, or short survey questions. Students or parents can respond using pre-stored (rather than free-form) messages.

All communication is archived and phone numbers are never seen, making the app safe and secure, an appealing feature for all parties involved.

Despite the successful rounds of financing, however, Remind may have to resist pressure from future investors to either charge for the app or create a paid, premium model of the product. For now, company executives have no plans to move in that direction. 

For more news on mergers, acquisitions, and venture capital in education, follow Marketplace K-12’s “K-12 Dealmaking” series.