public traded as nasdaq cpla industry education founder stephen shank headquarters capella tower minneapolis minnesota usa key people kevin gilligan ceo services online education number of employees 1 278 faculty 1 website www.capellaeducationcompany.com entrance to capella education corporation headquarters at 225 south sixth in minneapolis capella education company is an education services holding company which owns for profit online capella university and other assets . what is now the capella education company was founded in 1991 by stephen shank former ceo of tonka corporation . in 1993 it opened the graduate school of america tgsa . in 1999 the company and university were renamed to their current capella education company and university . in 2003 the company was named to inc. magazine s inc. 500 hall of fame after being named one of america s 500 fastest growing private companies for the fifth year in a row . prior to going public the company raised more than 67 million from private investors including maveron . on january 8 2005 capella education co. said it had two new investors following deals totaling more than 60 million . 2 the company announced its intentions to go public with an initial public offering in april 2005 . it reported 2005 earnings of 10.2 million on sales of nearly 150 million . on november 9 2006 it completed a public offering that raised 80 million . in march 2008 capella education co. longtime occupant the 225 south sixth skyscraper in downtown minneapolis signed a new lease that will change the name of the building to capella tower . the expanded facility will house all of the company s 1 150 downtown minneapolis employees capella ; as the online school does not have classrooms the space houses administrative staff and faculty . the name change is scheduled to take place on march 2009 . 3 in july 2011 capella education company acquired the uk based resource development international ltd rdi gaining them access to the fast growing international higher education market with a significant presence in the uk and commonwealth countries . 4 5 in august 2015 rdi received approval in the uk to become the newly formed arden university . 6 7 in april 2016 capella education company acquired the software engineering school for women hackbright academy and the nationally leading coding bootcamp devmountain . 8 references edit company profile for capella education co cpla . retrieved 2008 10 22 . capella investors buy 60m worth of shares . sam black capella lease to rename 225 south sixth minneapolis st. paul business journal march 20 2008 . wall street journal online edition http online.wsj.com article bt co 20110715 705702.html capella education company news release http www.capellaeducation.com news news releases index.aspx marketwatch.com rdi subsidiary of capella education company approved to operate as arden university in the united kingdom times higher news for profit rdi granted university status hackbright academy joins capella education company to further goal of closing the gender gap in software engineering . external links edit company website mark reilly capella jumps after 80m ipo minneapolis st. paul business journal november 10 2006 retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title capella education company & oldid 731337165 categories for profit universities and colleges in the united stateseducational institutions established in 1991education companies of the united statescompanies listed on nasdaq1991 establishments in minnesota navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 24 july 2016 at 18 06 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view