Austin-based edtech startup SchooLinks announced Monday that it raised $8.3 million in a Series A led by LiveOak Venture Partners.
Founded in 2015, the SchooLinks platform aims to drive post-secondary success by improving the college counseling process. Students can use the platform to explore college options, grab career guidance, land internship opportunities, apply for scholarships and more.
At a district level, the SchooLinks platform helps to streamline back-office logistics for college counselors. The platform acts as a central hub for counselors to house their career and academic plans, course planning documents, endorsement tracking numbers and more. The company ultimately aims to give time back to counselors so that they can more effectively handle larger caseloads of students.
Following the latest round, the company will use the additional capital to build out new partnerships and expand the size of its team as it continues to scale.
“Changing legislation at the state level and evolving market conditions are putting a spotlight on the school districts’ ability to set their students up for success in the job market regardless of whether they attend a four-year college or not,” Katie Fang, founder and CEO of SchooLinks, said in a statement.
Fang told Forbes that she founded SchooLinks out of her own frustration with the college counseling process. After completing her finance degree, she set out with the intention to create a counseling platform that would rival many of the legacy solutions already in place in school districts across the United States.
Now, over 500,000 students at a handful of school districts across the country use the career counseling platform, including Dallas Independent School District, Greenville County Schools and the San Antonio Independent School District. The platform is free to use for students; school districts just have to foot the bill.
“SchooLinks is honestly the future of college and career planning. In less than a year, this tool is finally moving us out of using bulky spreadsheets and into data analytics that goes from aggregate data to student lists with just a few clicks,” Eduardo Sesatty, director of postsecondary initiatives at San Antonio ISD, said in a statement.
Additional investors SJF Ventures and Juvo Ventures participated in the round.
