Engageli has been awarded as one of America’s Top EdTech Companies 2026. The award is presented by TIME and Statista Inc., the world-leading statistics portal and industry ranking provider. The awards list was announced on April 22nd, 2026, and can be viewed on TIME.com.
The ranking is built on the research and analysis of over 2,500 companies across two dimensions: financial strength and industry impact. Companies received scores in each dimension, which were combined into an overall score. The 250 companies with the highest scores, those that demonstrated extraordinary impact on the industry and strong financial performance, were awarded.
For a company founded on the conviction that online learning deserves purpose-built technology, recognition from an independent, data-driven ranking carries weight. Here’s what the ranking measured, who built Engageli and why, and what the platform does in classrooms worldwide every day.
2,500 companies evaluated, 250 awarded
TIME's America’s Top EdTech Companies list recognizes companies primarily focused on developing and providing educational technologies, products, or services.
Data sources
In support of the research, data was gathered from annual reports, media monitoring, and other public sources. Statista also worked with specialized data partners, The Upright Project and LexisNexis PatentSight, to further strengthen data quality.
Scoring dimensions
Industry impact: The quality and impact of each company’s product or service portfolio, and the quality and value of its intellectual property.
Financial strength: Revenue, funding data, and company disclosures were analyzed.
The Upright Project quantified each company’s holistic product impact and alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, while LexisNexis PatentSight analyzed the quantity and influence of intellectual property portfolios. Statista also researched web traffic metrics to assess relevance to target audiences.
Companies were analyzed across twelve categories, including Learning Management Systems, AI-powered education, online course platforms, STEM tools, and new teaching models, which Statista defines as learner-centered methods that are action- and cooperation-oriented and use interactive online resources to fully involve learners.
The team behind Engageli
How Engageli came to be
As CEO and co-founder Dan Avida tells it: during the pandemic, he and his wife Daphne Koller watched their daughters slog through the uninspiring experience of taking classes on Zoom. It quickly became clear that the problem wasn’t the students or the teachers. It was the tech. Educators were trying to force a meeting platform to do the job of a classroom, and it just wasn’t built for it.
Daphne had co-founded Coursera and spent 18 years as a Stanford professor. With deep experience in the online learning space, they knew a far superior platform was possible. Together with their long-time friend and colleague Serge Plotkin, a Stanford Professor Emeritus, they created Engageli in 2020. The platform has since been refined through classroom usage across K-12, higher education, and corporate training.
The founders
Dan Avida is the Co-Founder and CEO of Engageli. Before founding the company, Dan worked in technology as an executive and board member for more than three decades. Throughout his career, he has scaled several companies from a small founding team to over $100M in revenues and valuations of over $1B. As co-founder of Decru, he led the company from its inception through its acquisition. He also served as Chairman and CEO of EFI, where he oversaw the development of its flagship product from the earliest days and achieved market capitalization of over $3B. Most recently, he acted as General Partner at Opus Capital, where he led early-stage investments in several companies, including SolarEdge, Inc. (NASDAQ: SEDG). Dan has a B.Sc. in Computer Engineering, summa cum laude, from Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology.
Daphne Koller, Ph.D. is a Co-Founder and Board Member of Engageli. She also serves as an Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, where she was a member of the faculty team for 18 years. She is a MacArthur Fellowship recipient and a member of both the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2012, Daphne was selected as one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People. She co-founded Coursera, one of the world’s largest online education platforms, and Insitro, a machine learning-enabled drug discovery company. She is also the author of over 200 publications. Daphne has a BSc and MSc from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a Ph.D. from Stanford University.
Serge Plotkin, Ph.D. is the Co-Founder and CTO of Engageli and an Emeritus Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, where he taught for over 25 years. He was also the Co-Founder of Decru, where he served as Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Engineering. Serge has published more than 100 technical papers and has been issued 14 patents. Serge has a Ph.D. from MIT.
What Engageli does differently
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Dynamic virtual tables
Engageli’s patented Tables architecture is the structural core of the platform. When a student joins a session, they are automatically seated at a virtual table with a small group of peers. They can see each other, talk, share documents, and collaborate, all while the instructor maintains simultaneous visibility of every table from a central podium.
This is architecturally different from breakout rooms. In a breakout room model, students are sent away from the main session. The instructor must manually join each room one at a time to observe what’s happening. In Engageli, instructors can observe all tables at once, visit any table without disrupting others, and bring the whole room back for a plenary discussion with a single click. No student is ever out of sight.
Native collaboration tools
Polls, whiteboards, notes, Q&A boards, and shared documents all live inside the session rather than requiring separate apps or browser tabs. Activities connect to tables in real time, surfacing engagement insights that help instructors make better teaching decisions while reducing the cognitive load of managing multiple tools.
Embedded gamified activities
Quizzes and Sprints turn participation into active play. Streaks and leaderboards spark energy and reinforce key concepts. These aren’t add-ons running in a separate tab; they’re built into the same session where instruction happens.
Real-time engagement insights
Instructors get an instant view of class dynamics: speak time, attendance patterns, camera on/off, note-taking habits, poll responses, chat activity, and sentiment. They can drill down to the individual, table group, or full-class level to understand participation and provide targeted support.
Learning that continues after the live session
Engageli breaks down the barrier between live and recorded learning by unifying both within one ecosystem. Through interactive playback rooms, students watching later can participate in the same polls, view shared documents, and access persistent collaborations. Immersive asynchronous modules add real-world scenarios and guided reflections, paired with practice questions and feedback. Engageli's anytime AI tutor connects ideas across course materials to help learners understand the reasoning behind the facts, while staying aligned with instructor-provided content.
Based on the results of the study, Engageli is ecstatic to be recognized on TIME’s list of America’s Top EdTech Companies 2026. To see other recognitions we've received, visit our awards page.
See what Engageli looks like in action! Request a demo to experience the Tables architecture, native engagement tools, and real-time analytics that earned Engageli a place on TIME’s list.