The new funds will be used to accelerate the company's sales and marketing capabilities throughout the world and to expand development of Wimba Collaboration Suite, the industry's most comprehensive collaborative software suite for higher education, K-12, and educational publishing.

In connection with the investment, Kylie Sachs, a partner at Ascend Venture Group who focuses on investment opportunities in education concerns, among other areas, will become a member of Wimba's board of directors. Sachs also serves as a director of Printroom.com Inc., Boxxet Inc., and Tutor.com; is an observer to the NextMedium, Inc. and Retention Education Inc. boards of directors; and is a director on the board of trustees of Literacy Inc.

"Ascend invests in companies that have the capabilities to transform the education industry, and Wimba is clearly transforming teaching and learning with its multi-modal suite approach", said Sachs. "We believe Wimba has the sustainable competitive advantage to accelerate and expand its market leadership in the emerging collaborative learning software market. We're looking forward to working with the team at Wimba to capture the opportunity in front of them."

"Ascend Ventures brings substantial domain expertise in education concerns and an outstanding track record of helping their portfolio companies to succeed", said Tommaso Trionfi, chief executive officer of Wimba. "Their investment is a gratifying endorsement of our market success, vision, and execution. We are looking forward to working closely with them to leverage their expertise, resources, and relationships to accelerate our growth."