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Perth-based edtech Paperly has secured $3 million in new funding to accelerate its expansion across Australia and support rising demand from international schools adopting its administration and compliance platform.
The round was led by new investor Tribe Global Ventures with participation from Purpose Ventures, which invested in Paperly’s 2023 seed round, as well as Skalata.
The investment follows a period of “exceptional” traction for the company, which has recorded 4,600 per cent growth in annual recurring revenue since its seed round, which the company says has been a key milestone underpinning its current scale-up strategy.
Founded in 2018 by CEO Daniel Dawson, Paperly formally brought on board Jak Tidman as chief operations officer during the 2023 seed round.
After two years driving growth, Tidman has since been recognised as co-founder of the platform, which streamlines the complex administrative workflows involved in managing extracurricular activities for primary and secondary schools.
Dawson and Tidman are both finalists in the 2025 Australian Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards being held this Saturday.
“Since 2023, we have experienced exceptional growth across the diocese level in the education sector, as well as group deals involving collections of schools,” Tidman tells Business News Australia.
“We’ve also signed on reseller agreements and expanded into international markets, which is where some of this new capital will go.
“We’re now doubling down on Australia, where we continue to see significant growth potential, while accelerating our expansion into international markets, such as the UK and Asia.”
Dawson, a software engineer with deep experience in school operations, founded Paperly after witnessing firsthand the inefficiencies, compliance burdens and administrative bottlenecks affecting educators.
“I decided there had to be a better way,” says Dawson.
“While I was still working in the school sector, I started building out the platform and the business took off from there.”
He notes that Paperly’s rapid momentum has been significantly supported by Tidman, who brought experience from his first company, which worked with major organisations including BHP, Wesfarmers, South32 and Fortescue.
“Jak has been a catalyst in terms of growing the business through partnerships and sales,” says Dawson. “We really feel like we have hardly scratched the surface.”
Paperly operates a SaaS (software-as-a-service) model, providing schools with configurable modules that streamline extracurricular and administrative processes such as excursion management, digital forms, updating parent details, managing calendars and parent–teacher interview scheduling among other features.
The platform integrates with existing student information systems and learning management systems to replace fragmented third-party tools and provide real-time oversight of risk and compliance.
Paperly now has more than 250 schools contracted for 2026, with continued growth expected across both public and independent sectors.
Tidman attributes much of the platform’s traction to its flexibility, modularity and ability to support increasingly complex risk and compliance expectations in school operations.
“Unlike many other education tools, Paperly is a modular platform where schools can buy what they like and subscribe to specific modules that they need,” he says.
“Many schools have their existing student information systems and learning management systems, but those systems don’t do excursion management, for example. Some might, but not very well.
“The excursions management process includes matters such as consent, updating medical details of students and undertaking risk assessments – all the things required when putting students on a bus or a plane for an excursion outside of school.
“Our modular pricing means schools can adopt the solutions they need most, while scaling over time without paying for unused functionality. This flexibility makes Paperly accessible to small schools and powerful enough for large, multi-campus organisations.”
While Paperly’s customer base is predominantly independent schools, the platform is also used by several government schools, each providing feedback that guides the product roadmap. Tidman notes that 60 per cent of earnings are consistently reinvested into product improvements.
“The feedback we receive gives us an in-depth roadmap for what we need to do to improve the platform for our customers,” he says.
Paperly’s international expansion is now accelerating, supported by a surge of inbound interest from the UK and Asia. The company has established offices in Melbourne, Brisbane and the UK, with a team of around 30 globally.
“In order to service the UK adequately, we will need to have boots on the ground to support the schools and local engineers,” says Tidman.
“It’s all about scaling at the moment. We already have a school in Thailand and the UK, with inbound interest continuing to come from these regions.
“While the UK is our next obvious step, the ultimate is the US market.”
Jack Butler, investment associate at Tribe Global Ventures, says the venture capital firm is looking forward to supporting the Paperly founders with their international expansion plans.
“Paperly’s traction proves you can achieve best-in-class growth despite operating in a sector with notoriously long sales cycles,” he says.
Kylie Gerrard, from Purpose Ventures, notes the solid growth by the company that led to the firm's participation in the current capital raise.
“Since our initial investment we have been impressed with how Dan and Jak have led Paperly’s growth to date and were keen to invest in this round to support their continued expansion into new partnerships and regions,” says Gerrard.
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