Blackboard Inc. is an enterprise software company with its corporate headquarters in Washington, D.C. and is primarily known as a developer of education software, in particular learning management systems. Blackboard was founded by CEO Michael Chasen and chairman Matthew Pittinsky in 1997 and became a public company in 2004. The company provides education, mobile, communication, and commerce software and related services to clients including education providers, corporations and government organizations. Blackboard's six platforms are: Learn, Transact, Connect, Mobile, Collaborate and Analytics. The company has been a leader in the development of Internet-based education software. As of December 2010^[update], Blackboard software and services are used by over 9,300 institutions in more than 60 countries.

Blackboard was founded in 1997 by Michael Chasen and Matthew Pittinsky and began as a consulting firm contracting to the non-profit IMS Global Learning Consortium. Chasen and Pittinsky started Blackboard upon leaving KPMG Consulting where they both had worked as part of the company’s Higher Education practice. In 1998, the company merged with CourseInfo LLC, a small course management software provider that originated at Cornell University and was founded by Daniel Cane and Stephen Gilfus, creating the second^{[citation needed]} widely-used course management software on the market (preceded by WebCT which was developed starting in 1995 and in widespread use by the end of 1996). The combined company became known as Blackboard Inc. The first line of e-learning products was branded Blackboard CourseInfo LLC, until the CourseInfo brand was dropped in 2000.