Maynard represented global investment firm Franklin Templeton as lead investor in connection with a $100 million Series D financing of Newsela, a leading K-12 instructional content platform with 37 million registered students and 2.5 million registered teachers in 90% of all U.S. schools. Other participants in the financing included TCV, Owl Ventures, Tao Capital Partners, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and Waycross Ventures.

Newsela will use the funding to build and acquire features and content that help teachers plan and execute more effective lessons, advance the digitization of K-12 classrooms, and accelerate its rapidly expanding customer base.

The Maynard transaction team was led by James Childs and included Jonathan Kipp, Chitra Kalyanaraman and Jack Cantrell. Gunderson Dettmer represented Newsela in connection with the transaction.