Doowii: Product, team and how it was built
Doowii (AI data platform that answers plain-language questions about school and university data, United States): In use at 35 Cristo Rey Network campuses, November 2026. Evidence grade E: no revenue figure was checked. Team: 2 founders, Ben Dodson and Ilho Ye, in Antler's September 2023 showcase; the June 2024 release names Ben Dodson and Matthew Young as co-founders; about 15 people in November 2026 (careers page), after a US$4.1M round in June 2024. Launched December 2023; still running.Added 6 November 2026
- Outcome
- In use at 35 Cristo Rey Network campuses, November 2026
- Evidence
- E no revenue figure was checked
- Launch
- December 2023
- Status
- Still running
- Team
- 2 founders, Ben Dodson and Ilho Ye, in Antler's September 2023 showcase; the June 2024 release names Ben Dodson and Matthew Young as co-founders; about 15 people in November 2026 (careers page), after a US$4.1M round in June 2024
- Outside funding
- Antler portfolio company (Fall 2023 US showcase); US$4.1M round announced by the company on 6 June 2024, with GSV Ventures, Reach Capital, Common Sense Growth Fund and others
- Main channel
- Not stated
What is not verified
No revenue figure was found. The company publishes no prices or revenue, no payment-processor profile was found, and the funding release of June 2024 gives investors, not sales. The Cristo Rey and WGU Labs figures are usage counts reported on Doowii's own pages. A reader could look for district board minutes or public contracts with Doowii, which often show prices, or an investor interview with figures. This story is grade E: the business is real and its product, price and customers are described from public pages, but no revenue figure was checked. Aiolum shows it as an idea worth studying, not as proof that it makes money.
Doowii sells a unified data platform, one place that copies data from a school's separate systems, joins it and keeps it current. On top of it is natural-language analysis, where a user types a question in ordinary words and the software writes the database query, runs it and draws the answer. The home page also shows governed metrics, definitions such as "chronic absenteeism" that the institution fixes once so that every report counts the same way.
Antler's Fall 2023 US showcase, dated 29 September 2023, lists Doowii with founders Ben Dodson (ex-Snapchat and Google AI engineer) and Ilho Ye (ex-Twitter and Microsoft engineering manager). The site showed "Coming Soon" in May 2023 and a live product with a pilot program by December 2023. On 6 June 2024 the company announced a US$4.1M round and named Ben Dodson as CEO and Matthew Young as co-founder and COO. In November 2026 the careers page says the company has about 15 people, and its customer page reports use across 35 Cristo Rey Network campuses.
No revenue figure was found in any downloaded source, so the evidence grade is E. What is checked is the founders, the dates of the site, the funding announcement, the team size and the customer usage that the company reports.
How much revenue does Doowii make?
Each row shows the evidence grade and the source numbers from the list at the end of this page. The grades are explained in How Aiolum verifies.
| Fact | Value | Grade | How we know | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cristo Rey Network use, first two months | 35 active campuses, 98 active users, 1,100 questions in 338 sessions | C | Doowii's customer page and case study, undated, read 6 November 2026. The page says the results are reported usage and do not claim a change in student outcomes. | [5] |
| WGU Labs pilot, 2025 | 4 months, 48 Program Mentors and four team managers; about half became regular users | C | Doowii's EDUCAUSE page and customer page, quoting the WGU Labs research report. The page says the pilot "did not establish a causal lift in student academic outcomes". | [5, 6] |
| Founding team, September 2023 | 2 founders: Ben Dodson and Ilho Ye | C | Antler's Fall 2023 US Portfolio Showcase, 29 September 2023. Antler says it works with founders "starting from day zero" in residencies in Austin, Boulder and New York. | [3] |
| Co-founders named in June 2024 | Ben Dodson (CEO) and Matthew Young (COO) | C | The company's press release of 6 June 2024. The two sources name different second founders; neither says more than two founders at once. | [4] |
| First site | "Coming Soon" page, May 2023; live product page by 8 December 2023 | C | Wayback copies of 26 May 2023 and 8 December 2023. The December page offers a Pilot Program and a "Founder Program" with "discounted early access pricing" for the 2023-2024 school year. | [7] |
| Funding, June 2024 | US$4.1M | C | Company press release, 6 June 2024, naming GSV Ventures, Better Ventures, Avesta Fund, Imagine Learning Ventures, Strada Education Foundation, Reach Capital and Common Sense Growth Fund. | [4] |
| Team, November 2026 | about 15 people, most in engineering, fully remote | C | Doowii careers page, read 6 November 2026. | [6] |
| Security | SOC 2 Type II report | C | Stated on the home page and the Security & Trust page; the report itself was not read. | [1, 8] |
| Prices | quote only, by institution size and data sources | C | Pricing page, 6 November 2026. | [2] |
| Time from the live site to the November 2026 count | 35 months | calc | Calculated: December 2023 to November 2026. | [5, 7] |
How to read this table: a grade C value is what the company or its investor states on its own pages or in a press release. A "calc" value (grade X) was computed on this page. No value comes from a payment processor, a filing or a journalist's own check.
| Plan | Per month, billed yearly (US$) | Per month, billed monthly (US$) | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Institution plan | quote | quote | full platform; price by number of students or campuses and data sources connected |
The page says pricing "scales with your size (students/campuses) and the data sources you connect", with "no per-seat surprises" and "No feature gating". Every plan includes the whole platform, onboarding, data setup and support. Schools, districts, universities and consortia get a tailored quote after a demo.
When did Doowii launch, and how did it grow?
From a "Coming Soon" page in Boulder in 2023 to a managed data platform with a SOC 2 report and named customers in 2026. Each entry carries its grade.
- May 2023Cdoowii.io shows a "Coming Soon" page from Doowii, Inc. [7]
- 29 September 2023CAntler's Fall 2023 US showcase presents Doowii as "their own personalized AI analytics copilot" for educators, with founders Ben Dodson and Ilho Ye. [3]
- December 2023CThe live site, with a Boulder address, sells natural-language search over school data, pinboards and a prediction engine, and invites schools into a pilot and a discounted Founder Program. [7]
- 6 June 2024CDoowii announces US$4.1M from education investors and says its white-label versions for large education-software platforms have "seen significant uptake". [4]
- 2025CA four-month pilot with 48 Program Mentors at WGU Labs. [5]
- November 2026CDenver address, about 15 people, a SOC 2 Type II report, quote-only pricing, and a customer page with the Cristo Rey Network across 35 campuses. [1, 2, 5, 6]
Why did Doowii work?
Four causes, in the order they mattered. Each one is a reusable lesson.
Data first, question box second
The December 2023 page already said Doowii built "a modern data stack that aggregates data within schools into a clean data warehouse that is optimized specifically for AI-Search". A plain-language question only gets a correct answer when the tables behind it are joined and defined, so the platform's real work is the data layer.
Shared definitions and a visible method
Each answer shows its definition, scope and sources, for example "Absent for 10% or more of enrolled instructional days" from SIS attendance data. Staff can check how a number was made, which matters when it goes to a school board.
Sell to institutions, set it up for them
Pricing is a quote by institution size, and every plan includes onboarding and data setup. Doowii's team connects the systems and keeps the platform running, which is how a product for non-analysts can work with messy school data.
How it was built
These details come from the company's own pages. They are grade C. [1, 2, 8]
- Connections to SIS, LMS, ERP, CRM and assessment systems, and a page on analytics and reporting for Stellic.
- A modeled education data layer with a metrics catalog, snapshots, lineage and access permissions.
- For institutions that need it, customer-owned storage with open Apache Iceberg tables and DuckDB query compute inside the customer's own cloud network (VPC) and region.
- Predictive flags show contributing factors and require a human review before any action; the page says "No automatic action".
- No downloaded page names the AI model provider.
Tools named in the sources
Each one opens its page in the Tools tab, with every story that uses it.
Who tried this before Doowii, and why did they fail?
Three companies in our database of failed startups promised to turn school data into insight for educators and failed. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.
InBloom
The promiseOne data infrastructure that gathers student data from many sources so schools can track progress.
Why it diedParents and educators objected to how student data was collected and shared, states withdrew, and integration was costly.
Edusight
The promiseA platform for K-12 teachers to track student performance.
Why it diedSlow school procurement and better-funded rivals such as ClassDojo and Seesaw.
AllHere
The promiseAn AI platform that predicts which students will miss school and helps districts act.
Why it diedThe product did not show a return that justified its cost, operations broke down, and the founder was later charged with fraud.
The failed startups come from our database of 1,749 dead startups, retold here in our own words. Its entries are AI-assisted summaries of public sources, so these cards carry no evidence grade.
What changed
InBloom tried to collect data from whole states and fell on trust; Edusight sold to single teachers and fell on slow procurement. Doowii sells to one institution at a time, keeps data in the institution's own scope, and publishes a SOC 2 report and privacy controls for FERPA and COPPA.
Large language models changed the interface: a staff member types a question instead of waiting for an analyst. AllHere shows that a prediction alone does not prove value, and Doowii's pages say its case studies do not claim causal effects on student outcomes.
Can one person copy Doowii now?
Not alone, and not quickly.
Doowii needs integrations with many school systems, a security audit, long sales to institutions and hands-on setup, and it raised outside money and grew to about 15 people. One person could copy the idea for a narrow case: plain-language questions over one system's data for one type of school.
Where it is still open: Plain-language reporting for small private schools, tutoring centers or training providers that cannot afford a data team or a large platform.
- 1Pick one source system that many schools use and build the data model for it first.
- 2Show the definition and source with every answer, so staff can check it.
- 3Start with a pilot on the school's own data, then a discounted early contract.
- 4Report usage honestly and do not claim effects on student results that the pilot did not test.
What could go wrong for Doowii?
The risks are the mirror image of the causes above.
What is not verified
No revenue figure was found. The company publishes no prices or revenue, no payment-processor profile was found, and the funding release of June 2024 gives investors, not sales. The Cristo Rey and WGU Labs figures are usage counts reported on Doowii's own pages. A reader could look for district board minutes or public contracts with Doowii, which often show prices, or an investor interview with figures.
From two founders to a funded team
Antler's September 2023 page lists two founders, Ben Dodson and Ilho Ye; the June 2024 release names Ben Dodson and Matthew Young as co-founders, so the second founder changed or the sources differ. After the US$4.1M round the careers page says about 15 people in November 2026.
Partly a managed service
The home page says Doowii "runs it as your AI data team" and that "Our team manages it end to end"; every plan includes onboarding and data setup. The product is software, but each customer also gets hands-on work.
Student data and predictions
The product handles student records for K-12 and higher education and flags students "at risk". The pages state FERPA and COPPA controls and a required human review before any action; the home page testimonials in 2023 were anonymous ("Charter School Principal in Denver"). Current customer stories are named.
Competition and model providers
On this site, EssayGrader and EasyClass AI sell AI tools to single teachers, not data platforms to institutions; Doowii's own site has a comparison page against EAB Edify. No downloaded page names the model provider behind the question box, so its dependence on OpenAI, Anthropic or another provider is not known.
Sources
The grade next to each source is the best grade that the source can support. "Read in full" means that the text of the page was downloaded and the numbers were checked in it.
- C Doowii home page, read 6 November 2026Read in full. Source for the product, the managed operation, the definitions shown with answers and the SOC 2 claim.
- C Doowii pricing page, read 6 November 2026Read in full. Source for quote-only pricing and what every plan includes.
- C Antler US blog, 29 September 2023: Announcing the Fall 2023 US Portfolio ShowcaseRead the Doowii entry and the introduction. Source for the founders and the 2023 description.
- C PR Newswire, 6 June 2024: Doowii Announces Successful Closure of Fundraising Round, Securing $4.1 Million to Advance AI-Driven Data Analytics for EducatorsRead in full. Company release. Source for the funding, the investors, the co-founders and the white-label strategy.
- C Doowii customer stories and the Cristo Rey Network case study, read 6 November 2026Read in full, with the case study at /customer-story-cristo-rey-network. Source for the usage counts and the WGU Labs pilot.
- C Doowii careers page and EDUCAUSE 2026 page, read 6 November 2026Read in full, with /meet-doowii-denver. Source for the team size and the WGU Labs pilot details.
- C Wayback Machine: doowii.io home page, 26 May 2023 and 8 December 2023Read both copies in full (the May copy at /web/20230526150240/). Source for the Coming Soon page, the first product, the pilot program and the Boulder address.
- C Doowii Security & Trust page, read 6 November 2026Read in full. Source for the privacy controls and the customer-owned storage option.
- C Database of failed startups, local exportLocal export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors.
Run this company? Send corrections or a verified figure to aiolum@livyden.com