Equipping educators with tools to support every student

Branching Minds provides a technology platform that helps schools implement data-driven, evidence-based student support at scale. Partnering with Double Impact, the company is expanding its reach, enhancing its product suite, and integrating AI-powered tools aimed at improving educator workflows. Its platform seeks earlier intervention and more coordinated support, helping drive better and more equitable student outcomes.

Impact thesis

Across the United States, persistent achievement gaps—and legacy pandemic-related learning loss—continue to leave millions of students behind, particularly those in high-poverty districts. As of spring 2024, average math and reading performance remained below 2019 levels, and the achievement gap between students in high- and low-poverty districts widened by approximately 11%.¹Dewey, D. C., Fahle, E., Kane, T. J., Reardon, S. F., & Staiger, D. O. (2025, February). Pivoting from pandemic recovery to long-term reform: A district-level analysis. Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University & The Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University. Schools face mounting pressure to respond with structured, evidence-based approaches that address both academic and social-emotional needs.

Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS), which evolved from earlier education frameworks and research in special education and was later supported by the US Department of Education, has emerged as a powerful solution to meet this challenge. When implemented effectively, MTSS can enable schools to identify struggling students early, provide targeted interventions, and monitor progress over time. This creates an opportunity for technology solutions that embed actionable data, collaboration workflows, and research-backed interventions directly into educators’ daily practice—seeking to ensure no student falls through the cracks.

Opportunity and investment

Branching Minds is a purpose-built platform designed to operationalize MTSS across entire school systems. Founded in 2013, the company’s platform provides a holistic view of student performance—integrating academic, behavioral, and social-emotional data—while equipping educators with evidence-based intervention, planning, and collaboration tools.

“Partnering with Bain Capital Double Impact has strengthened our ability to scale without losing sight of our mission. Their operational expertise and deep alignment with our purpose have enabled us to expand our reach, enhance our platform, and deliver even greater impact for the educators and students we serve.”¹ These endorsements are provided by certain CEOs and or founders of investments held by certain investment vehicles advised by Bain Capital affiliate investment advisers. None of these CEOs and or founders were directly compensated for providing these endorsements, however, the funds have made investments into such CEOs and or founders’ companies. As a result of this investment, a conflict of interest exists because the CEOs and or founders have an incentive to make positive statements about Bain Capital and their experiences with Bain Capital to maintain the goodwill with Bain Capital.

Maya Gat / Co-founder / Branching Minds

We believe Branching Minds is differentiated by a comprehensive, workflow-integrated approach. Rather than serving as a point solution, it embeds directly into school processes, enabling teachers, specialists, and administrators to coordinate support plans, document interventions, and track outcomes in one system. In our view, the company’s strong educator satisfaction and product efficacy further reinforce its position as a trusted MTSS partner.

Bain Capital Double Impact invested in Branching Minds in 2024, excited about the company’s potential to scale equitable, datadriven student support. As a values-aligned partner, Double Impact brings experience scaling K-12 education technology companies while seeking to preserve mission integrity.

Value creation

Since investment, Double Impact has partnered closely with management to scale the organization. The company formalized its governance structure, expanded leadership capacity, and strengthened operating discipline to support accelerated growth.

Branching Minds has also evolved from a single product offering into a multi-product platform. Recognizing the natural applicability of artificial intelligence within its data-rich ecosystem, the company launched two AI-powered solutions in 2025: Dottie, a chatbot that guides educators through MTSS best practices, and the MTSS Meeting Assistant, which uses ambient listening to streamline documentation and collaboration during intervention planning meetings.

“Branching Minds is tackling one of the most urgent challenges in K–12 education—how to systematically identify and support students before they fall behind. Our partnership is focused on scaling a platform that empowers educators with actionable data and practical tools, ultimately driving more equitable and measurable student outcomes at scale.”

Iain Ware / Partner / Bain Capital

We believe these tools enhance educator efficiency and reinforce high-fidelity MTSS implementation. Branching Minds has also launched Canopy Case Management, which leverages the rich data platform to centralize threat and suicide risk assessments along with behavioral data so teams can respond more effectively to keep students safe.

In parallel, the company has sharpened its go-to-market strategy to expand district adoption, enabling more schools to implement consistent, data informed MTSS practices. Working with the company’s management team, we aim to scale Branching Minds while deepening its impact and bring structured, evidence-based student support to more classrooms nationwide.