EduNav

EduNav is an academic planning tool for colleges and universities.

Its platform enables students to formulate strategic plans for graduating on-time, and enables schools to meet performance metrics in order to receive necessary state and federal funding.

EduNav’s platform can result in up to a 50% increase of a school’s student population graduating a semester earlier.

This company’s CEO has two previous successful exits in the education market. And its Chief Technology Officer sold his last company for $270 million. Now they’re turning their attention to the U.S. “smart” education and learning market, projected to reach $423 billion by 2025.

(Please note: This particular startup is raising funds from “accredited” investors only. An accredited investor is someone with a net worth of at least $1 million, or annual income of at least $200,000, or $300,000 with their spouse.)

Colleges today are facing poor student completion rates. According to the U.S. Department of Education, among first-time, full-time undergraduate students, only 20% graduate in four years. Meanwhile, in the past 20 years, more than 31 million students have enrolled in college only to drop out without earning a degree.

At the same time, federal and state funding for colleges and universities, which exceeds $200 billion annually, has shifted from enrollment-based to performance-based. Ohio, for example, allocates 100% of funding based on performance, while in Florida, the three lowest-scoring public universities receive no money from the state.

The bottom line: many colleges are at risk of losing millions of dollars in funding as a result of poor student success rates.

One reason for these rates is a lack of institutional planning. For example, the average college course is only 62% full. According to internal research, even an increase to 70% would save U.S. schools more than $23 billion.

EduNav has created a solution to these problems. Simply put, it replaces the students’ traditional academic planning and registration process with an algorithm-based, Google Maps-like approach to providing real-time navigation to graduation. In doing so, more students graduate on time, and schools receive the funding they rely on.

Essentially, colleges and universities incorporate EduNav’s platform into their academic registration process. Both students and advisors have access to this platform, and use it to map out a path to graduation in four years.

Students and advisors select and register for appropriate classes using the platform. And if a student opts to change the plan (for instance, dropping a course or taking a semester off), the advisor is alerted to the decision and can discuss it with the student. At the same time, the student can see any added costs or time to their path as a result of their decision.

EduNav sells its platform to schools through annual subscriptions. Pricing is based on a school’s student population.

The company has a dozen schools using its platform, including Florida International University, University of California, Riverside, and Indiana State University. In addition, EduNav has $5.5 million in booked revenues.

EduNav’s investors include Opus Capital, a venture capital firm that’s invested in America Online and FedEx, and Learn Capital, a VC firm that’s invested in Udemy and Coursera.

Team Background

Serge Plotkin - Chief Technology Officer

In addition to his work with EduNav, Serge is an associate professor of computer science at Stanford University. Throughout his career, he has written more than 100 technical papers for computer science journals and bene granted more than 20 patents.

In 2001, he co-founded Decru, a storage security company, where he served as Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Engineering. Decru was later acquired by Network Appliance (NASDAQ: NTAP) for $272 million.

Serge earned a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Ben Gurion University, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from MIT.

Isaac Segal - Co-Founder & CEO

Isaac has extensive experience in the education industry, and sold two of his previous companies.

He founded BetterKnow, a company that developed a product to help teachers develop more relevant course materials for students. In 2013, this company was acquired by Follett, an educational product company, and his product is used by more than 800 schools today.

Prior to that, he worked for Tegrity, a computer software company focused on the education industry. Under his leadership, Tegrity received the 1999 Israeli Prime Minister award for computer software, and was acquired by McGraw-Hill, a company that provides educational materials and software.

Isaac earned a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from Technion-Machon in Israel.

Andrey Stepantsov - Co-Founder & Sr. Director of Engineering

Andrey leads the development of the data acquisition technology at EduNav.

He has extensive experience in developing applications for the education industry, having previously worked with co-founder Isaac at BetterKnow and Tegrity.

Co-Investors

Learn Capital

Venture capital firm focused on funding early-stage companies. Portfolio includes Edmodo (network that provides educational tools for teachers and students and was acquired by NetDragon for $137 million) and MissionU (a platform designed to be an alternative to college for students that was acquired by WeWork).

Opus Capital

A venture capital firm that's invested in America Online and FedEx.