Empowerly Raises $10M to Help Students Achieve their Academic and Career Goals

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 8, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Empowerly, a data-driven education technology company that provides personalized college and career guidance to students and their families, today announced that it has raised a $10 million financing round led by Goodwater Capital. The new funding will be used to help grow Empowerly's product and engineering team to scale, invest in existing and new acquisition channels, and prepare for the launch of the Empowerly mobile app. To date, Empowerly has raised $12 million from investors, including Goodwater Capital, FJ Labs, Scrum Ventures, Translink Capital, Azure Capital Partners, Spero Ventures, Thinkplus Ventures and Mentors Fund.

Since its launch in 2018, Empowerly has grown to support thousands of students from across the nation while also growing its revenue 6x in the last year. There are currently over 100 counselors at Empowerly,  making up a combined 700 plus years of academic guidance and admissions experience with over 122,550 college applications read and reviewed. Each counselor is carefully chosen to meet the demands of students from all backgrounds — with more than half of Empowerly's counselors being people of color — and who have a specially dedicated field of study. The company's long-term vision is to continue to increase the supply and diversity of counselors available, especially as the average college application process is estimated to take up to 200 hours.

"With the average national student-to-counselor ratio sitting at 424-to-1, Empowerly is committed to providing every student the resources and expertise they need to navigate the college admissions process and achieve their dream of personal academic success," said Hanmei Wu, Co-Founder of Empowerly. "As COVID-19 continues to cause uncertainties about the state of the 2022 school year, parents and students alike need extra reassurance that their academic future is secure. We are thrilled to kick off the new year with this new funding, which will help grow our team and create even more advanced products for our students to thrive."

Empowerly is designed to make college admissions guidance accessible to all through data-driven education technology. By leveraging machine learning techniques coupled with continuously updated datasets and guidance led by former admissions officers and experienced counselors, Empowerly provides an unparalleled experience for students. Its platform uses algorithms and human expertise to connect students with their best-match counselors — all of whom have a diverse mix of backgrounds, from medical and science to economics and engineering degrees — who will assess their applicant competitiveness at top U.S. colleges and universities, internships and research programs.

With the Empowerly Score™ — the only predictive technology that can also quantify subjective material — students are offered a three-pronged approach to evaluate academics, essays, and extracurricular activities. This provides them with a 360-degree view of how to be competitive against other applicants. With Empowerly, students have seen up to 11 times improved admissions rates. To date, 94 percent of Empowerly students with a 3.6+ GPA have been accepted into a top 50 school, including all eight Ivy League colleges plus Stanford, MIT,  UChicago, Duke, Northwestern, Carnegie Mellon, UC Berkeley, and many others.

"Empowerly is the leading software-enabled college counseling platform, and we are so honored to partner with them on their mission of democratizing higher education for students all around the world," said Eric J. Kim, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Goodwater Capital. "Their community of counselors and admissions experts are collectively re-inventing how students approach their college admissions process and beyond."

To learn more about Empowerly, visit www.empowerly.com.

About Empowerly:
Empowerly is a data-driven education technology company that provides personalized college and career guidance to students and their families. The company's mission is to empower students to become the most successful version of themselves. From college preparation, landing internships, and beyond, we support students in achieving their academic goals.

Media Contact:
BAM for Empowerly
[email protected] 

SOURCE Empowerly