Schoold is a college search app that has been downloaded more than 500,000 times in its first month, and today the company is announcing that it has closed a seed round of $4.5 million.
Above: Schoold app
Image Credit: Schoold
The money will further the company’s mission of helping students and parents navigate the bewildering process of choosing a college. It comes as funding for educational tech companies continues to rise; the sector has received a five-fold boost in investment during the past five years. In fact, Global EdTech funding rose 58 percent in 2015, according to market researcher CB Insights.
San Francisco-based Schoold hopes to keep its users around for a while, not only helping them find a college, but also helping them navigate the system after they’ve enrolled.
Participating investors included Fast Forward; Lorne Abony, a serial entrepreneur and investor; and several other private investors. Funds will be used to introduce new core functionality to the Schoold app and to grow the company’s engineering and marketing teams. The funding comes on the heels of Schoold’s executive appointment of Joe Ross, an expert education technology leader, as its president and chief operating officer.
“We’re excited to get this funding from Fast Forward, Lorne Abony and the rest of our investors. Their investment, coupled with the rapid adoption that Schoold’s app is experiencing, is a strong endorsement of our vision, approach and the underlying technology driving the product,” said Sourabh Ahuja, CEO of Schoold, in a statement. “We look forward to building Schoold into the de facto, go-to-app for students and parents alike.”
Schoold released its mobile app on Google Play about a month ago and released it on the iOS app store shortly thereafter. The strong reception of the Schoold app comes at an important time, as April 1 is typically the final day for college admissions decisions to be sent out to millions of anxiously waiting high school students. Students generally have until May 1 to choose and commit to a college. Schoold’s entry into the market comes at the perfect time to help college-bound students and their parents make the best decision possible about where to invest their tuition dollars. Schoold pulls together hard-to-find, disparate data about thousands of colleges and provides all the key metrics, including graduation rates and salary projections, differentiated by each major at each college.
“The choice of a college and a major literally sets the stage for a young person’s future career options, earning potential, and job satisfaction,” added Ross, in a statement. “Schoold simplifies an unnecessarily confusing, complex process for students and families with a customized, intuitive app powered by rigorous data science.”