Kick off Thursday morning with the latest on Cerberus’ new fund; Zombies taking advantage of PE’s weakness and Yahoo’s acquisition of to-do app maker Astrid.

Zynga and the NewSchools Venture Fund joined forces Wednesday to unveil an ed-tech accelerator aimed at assisting young companies developing games to help students learn. Zynga.org, the game maker’s non-profit arm, said it plans to invest $1 million in the effort in its first year

Social Venture Fund, a student-led, Ann Arbor, Michigan-based “impact investing” fund that’s closely affiliated with the University of Michigan, has participated in a seed-stage financing for Mytonomy, a video storytelling platform for college and career advising. Other investors include NewSchools Venture Fund and Kapor Capital. Social Venture Fund makes investments of up to $100,000. Terms of the Mytonomy deal were not disclosed. Two-year-old Mytonomy is based in Washington, D.C.

LearnZillion said it raised $7 million of Series A funding in a deal led by DCM and joined by O’Reilly Alpha Tech Ventures, NewSchools Venture Fund, Calvert Social Investment Fund, and D.C. Community Ventures. The new round brings total funding to date to $9.4 million. The company raised a $2.4 million seed round.

This week there are a handful of associate positions up for grabs, two with a focus on real estate and CalPERS is hiring for a private equity portfolio manager but you’d better be quick off the mark – closing date is March 14.

eSpark said Wednesday that it secured over $5 million in equity financing. New investors MK Capital, Learn Capital and NewSchools Venture joined existing private investors in the financing. Chicago-based eSpark provides iPad-enabled individualized student learning plans.

EdSurge said it raised $400,000 of seed funding from institutional investors Washington Post Co. and NewSchools Venture Fund, and from angel investors Nancy Peretsman and Gillian Munson, Allen & Co. executives, O’Reilly Media executive Dale Dougherty, and Silicon Valley entrepreneur Judy Estrin. EdSurge, a news site covering education technology, previously received grants from the Bill [...]

San Francisco-based startup ClassDojo has launched out of beta an announced it has raised $1.6 million in seed funding. The company, which says it already has 3.5 million teacher and student members on its site, helps teachers manage student behavior using game mechanics. Investors include Paul Graham of Y Combinator, Ron Conway of SV Angel, [...]

San Francisco-based social learning startup Grockit has raised $7 million in Series D financing led by Atlas Venture. Benchmark Capital and Integral Capital Partners, both return investors, also participated in the round, along with new investors NewSchools Venture Fund and GSV Capital Corp. With a total of $24 million in financing, Grockit will use the money for growth.