Today we are excited to share that SmartPass has been acquired by Raptor Technologies, proving that category-leading solutions can sometimes come from students themselves. Founders Peter Luba and Dhruv Sringari transformed a high school coding project into a product that will now reach millions of students around the world.
Peter and Dhruv approached school safety differently from the start. While established companies focused on securing campus entry points, they identified a simple pattern break: students were using phones to coordinate their movements through school, while teachers were stuck with paper passes and tracking logs. The asymmetry wasn’t just inefficient; it created safety concerns as schools struggled to manage increasingly complex student schedules. The addition of post-pandemic support services like high-dosage tutoring and counseling only exacerbated the problem. Hall passes were no longer a point-solution, but an essential bridge to a holistic school operations platform.
They launched the first version of SmartPass in 2018, as high school seniors. Educators quickly took to it, and other schools followed. Some pushed it further. Teachers started hacking the product to support flex periods and schedule make-up tests. Nurses created recurring passes for scheduled medications and virtual queues to manage office capacity. Others repurposed features to nudge a student to a counseling appointment, or mark others for early dismissal. As the variety of use cases increased, so did the pace of product development and the need for engineers.
When Peter and Dhruv reached out in early 2023, we shared the long-term vision for a comprehensive school operations platform and invested immediately, leading the seed round. Working alongside the team, we helped build their outbound sales playbook, structure the customer success team, manage gaps in district payment cycles, and refine the product roadmap.
Peter and Dhruv embody the kind of intellectual curiosity we cherish at Reach. Be it a book or article, they would return within days having not just absorbed the material, but with pages of thoughtful questions and specific ideas for applying the concepts to SmartPass. This hunger to learn and translate knowledge into action is common across all successful founders, and often the difference between good ideas and great companies.
Central to SmartPass’s success is their deep connection to educators. Over 30 principals and tech coordinators served on the product advisory council, offering immediate test beds and feedback on new product concepts, ensuring every new feature served a real need in schools. This educator-first approach led to constant innovation. When schools started using SmartPass in creative or unexpected ways, the team would quickly evaluate, qualify, and ship native solutions for all users.
Perhaps most impressive was how Peter and Dhruv skillfully accommodated all these use cases without compromising user experience. What started as a simple hall pass has evolved into a comprehensive system for managing everything from tutoring appointments to emergency responses. With the recent release of school bell schedule integrations, the SmartPass team has taken another step towards reimagining the entire school operations stack.
The metrics show how integral SmartPass has become for its customers. Schools using it reported 60% reductions in missed classes and 45% drops in behavioral referrals. With unprecedented engagement (98% of students use it monthly), SmartPass is achieving something rare in education technology: an indispensable tool used every day, in many ways, in every classroom, across its schools. Joining forces with Raptor Technologies, which serves over 60,000 schools in 55 countries, marks an exciting next chapter. With added reach and resources, SmartPass can empower even more schools to create safer, more productive learning environments.
Great companies start when founders identify not just a problem, but seize on the moment to solve it. For Peter and Dhruv, a problem that started in high school became a passion that fueled them through college, now validated by millions of students, teachers, and revenue growth. It’s an inspiring reminder that a market-leading company can come from unexpected places — like a high school coding class.
