Last call: career planning platform SchooLinks raises $8.3M

On Monday EdTech start-up SchooLinks announced an $8.3M in series A financing. The round was led by LiveOak Venture Partners, which focuses on financing Texas-based companies, with the participation of Juvo Ventures and SJF Ventures. This is the first series of investments from the funds for SchooLinks since the project launched in 2015.

SchooLinks is an AI-based platform for college preparation and career planning, starting with an inventory of career interests and ending with tracking post-secondary education results. The audience for the service is prospective students, college administrators, and counseling services. Students can use the app’s functionality to figure out what they like best, get career guides and learn more about applying to colleges. Machine learning allows you to personalize this interaction. For counselors, the platform simplifies the college application process and for college administrators, it works as a data analysis tool.

“It’s a framework that helps students understand who they are, what they want to do, and how to achieve it,” says project CEO Cathy Fung in an interview. “And we provide more than 80 features and capabilities within that framework to help and guide them through that process.”

SchooLinks has major competitors in the field of career planning and college preparation in the US market. In addition, according to Fang, the lockdown has led to closed schools not seeking to adopt new technological solutions. However, this trend gradually declined, and schools began to request demo versions of the service.

With the new funding, SchooLinks plans to invest in tripling its team, product development and integration, and expanding its partnerships. SchooLinks is currently based in 14 states, with its strongest presence in Texas, Illinois and Washington, and plans to expand to all 50 states.