CORALVILLE, IOWA—Less than a year after announcing a $1 million seed round, Higher Learning Technologies announced Monday that the company has raised a $5.5 million Series A round led by a group of New York Super Angel investors.

“It certainly is a big step for us,” HLT co-founder Alec Whitters told SPN. “It’s been a process to get it done, but something that really can help take us to the next level and allow us to really grow and build on the success we’ve had as a company.”

While Whitters couldn’t disclose any other information about the group of New York investors, he says a number of other angels contributed to the $5.5 million round, including Nate Kaeding, Bruce Lehrmen, Matt Swift, Luke Recker and previous HLT investor Dick Ferguson.

The startup, founded in 2012, provides mobile study solutions for students preparing for dental, nursing and other professional-level exams. In that time, the Coralville, Iowa-based company has grown to 45 full-time and contract employees. 

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The raise will be used to help expand HLT’s software to support desktop devices, grow its team and create apps in new fields of study. The company currently has seven mobile apps available in the Apple App and Google Play Stores and more than 500,000 users around the world.

“Over this upcoming year, our goals are really to keep building out the learning engine we’ve been creating and want to continue to improve,” Whitters (right) said.

Whitters added that HLT plans to grow horizontally to new fields and areas of study while continuing to grow vertically by improving its products and bringing them to new platforms.

In early February, HLT closed a $1 million seed round. Among the round’s notable investors are former ACT CEO Richard Ferguson, Involta founder and CEO Bruce Lehrman and Josh Cramer of Iowa City, Iowa-based dev firm FullStack.

In May, HLT’s second app, a study tool for the nursing licenser exam, NCLEX RN Mastery, was a top-grossing educational app in both the Apple App and Google Play Stores and was ranked among Apple’s top 125-grossing apps overall.

Read more about Higher Learning Technologies’ investment history through our previous coverage: 

• “What’s Iowa’s investment landscape like right now? We took a look“
• “Investment in Iowa: Higher Learning Technologies“