Instructure

Summarize Timeline Fact Check

The company was founded in 2008 by two BYU graduate students, Brian Whitmer and Devlin Daley.^[5] Its initial funding came from Mozy founder Josh Coates, who served as Instructure's CEO from 2010 to 2018 and chairman of the board through 2020.^[6]

In December 2010, the Utah Education Network (UEN), a representative of some Utah colleges and universities, announced that Instructure would be replacing Blackboard.^[7] By 2013, the company's customer base had increased to at least 9 million users.^[8]

In 2011, Instructure launched Canvas, a learning management system.^[9] The company announced that Canvas would be made freely available under an Affero General Public License (AGPL) license as open-source software. However, the company continued to sell Canvas management as a service.^[10][11][12] Canvas became available on iOS in 2011, and on Android in 2013.^[13]

In 2015, Instructure launched Bridge, a cloud-based corporate learning management system.^[14] It was acquired by Learning Technologies Group (LTG) in 2021.^[15]

As of 2015, the company had raised $90 million in funding from investors.^[16] On November 13, 2015, the firm began trading as a publicly held company on the New York Stock Exchange.^[17]

In 2017, the company acquired Philadelphia-based video learning startup Practice XYZ, formerly known as ApprenNet, and merged the offerings into its own products.^[18][19]

In 2020, Thoma Bravo acquired the company for $2 billion.^[20] As of 2020, Canvas was used in approximately 4,000 institutions worldwide.^[21] In June 2021, Instructure again filed for an IPO,^[22] and began trading under the symbol INST.^[23]

In 2024, it was announced that KKR and Dragoneer had completed their $4.8 billion purchase of the company.^[2]

Later in 2024, Instructure announced the acquisition of Parchment, a credential management platform.^[24]

2026 Canvas security breach

Main article: 2026 Canvas security incident

In late April 2026, Canvas LMS experienced a security breach, with an outage following in early May.^[25][26]The hack is considered the largest educational security breach on record due to its unprecedented global scale, affecting 8,809 universities, educational ministries, and other institutions worldwide.^[27] Instructure disclosed that it was investigating a cybersecurity attack involving certain user data, including names, email addresses, student ID numbers, and messages amongst users.^[26] The company claimed it had found no evidence that passwords, birth dates, government IDs, or financial information were involved in the hacking.^[28] However, other sources indicate that this cybersecurity attack has put 275 million^[29] students and teachers data at risk.^[30][31][32]

Despite Instructure's claim that the situation had been resolved, on May 7th, Canvas was hacked again; its login page was replaced with a ransomware message by ShinyHunters, the criminal hacking group that claimed responsibility. ShinyHunters threatened to release Canvas's sensitive data unless its ransom was paid by the end of May 12.^[33][34]

404 Media stated this was the largest educational security breach ever on record.^[35] ShinyHunters claimed to have stolen 3.65 terabytes of data (approximately 275 million records).^[36]

By May 8, seven lawsuits in federal courts had been filed against Instructure, including one that also named KKR as a defendant.^[37] On May 13, a California-specific proposed class action lawsuit was filed by a San Diego resident against Instructure in the Southern District of California, alleging the breach of personally identifiable information.^[38][39][40]

• History of virtual learning environments
• Virtual learning environment