Universities are being asked to do something close to impossible: support ever more students, around the clock, in multiple languages, with budgets that aren’t growing to match. The result is students stuck in queues for answers about financial aid, housing or coursework – often at the exact moment they’re deciding whether they can keep going or need to drop out.
That’s why we’re proud to be leading the €2M seed round of LearnWise, the AI-powered student support platform for higher education.
LearnWise sits across an institution’s learning management system, portals and helpdesks, and answers like a colleague who knows the whole campus. It deploys in ~30 minutes, integrates natively with Canvas, Brightspace, Moodle and Blackboard, and connects with more than 400 learning tools. So far, they’ve served more than 720,000 students worldwide, with support queries down 50% at leading institutions.
The team building this is one of the strongest we’ve backed at this stage. Cofounder and CEO Greg Marschall and much of the crew scaled EesySoft (acq Instructure) together before coming back for a second act – same eyes, bigger prize. What sealed it for us was their honesty: no inflated theatre, just a clear-eyed account of what’s hard in selling to universities and how they’ll win anyway. Senior university leaders in our Venture Partner community felt it too. When we sounded them out during our due diligence, the overwhelming response was: “when can I pilot this?”
“I was the first in my family to go to university, and I remember having no one at home who could tell me how any of it worked – what support existed, who to ask, whether I even belonged there at all. Students like that rarely drop out loudly; they leave quietly, after one question too many goes unanswered. A degree is still the most reliable engine of social mobility we have, so when a student like that drops out, the cost lasts a lifetime.
LearnWise gives every student what the lucky ones have always had: someone who knows the whole campus and is there to ask, at any hour, in their own language. We led this round because, for students like me, the right answer at the right moment can keep a life on its upward path. Potential like that is the whole reason Emerge exists.”
Nic, Emerge
The funding will accelerate product development and team expansion as universities worldwide face rising support demand.
Greg and team – welcome. A wise choice, all round.
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