For some, the words “financial aid” stirs up reminders of grueling applications and the anxiety of coping with skyrocketing college tuition.
Phoenix-based CampusLogic aims to chip away at some of those challenges by helping institutions manage and award financial aid to more students, as well as reduce student borrowing by connecting colleges with private grant and scholarship opportunities for students.
To get there, the company is first doing a bit of borrowing of its own. Today, CampusLogic announced it has raised $55 million from software investor, JMI Equity, to grow its product, customer success, sales and marketing teams—and to purchase other companies.
Acquisitions aren’t a new strategy for the seven-year-old startup that describes itself as a student financial services (SFS) platform. In 2017, CampusLogic acquired Cegment’s Net Price Calculator—now the company’s ClearCost tool—to help students and their families estimate the cost of college before applying or enrolling in a school.
Gregg Scoresby, CEO of CampusLogic, is now exploring buying more companies, with the hopes of continuing the company’s growth. And Scoresby says CampusLogic is considering companies in spaces not traditionally associated with student financial aid or student information system services.
For example, Scoresby says he is interested in exploring ways to help schools better advise students on how to not overborrow and how to manage their loan payments better. Currently, the company already has a feature to “recommend how much debt is appropriate for each degree program,” according to TechCrunch.
Users likely won’t see CampusLogic competing with student loan companies any time soon, however, and Scoresby says the company will remain institution-facing. “Students don't know our brand. We sell to schools and we will continue to focus on that,” he says. “But right now schools are largely disconnected from the repaying part of the equation and we think we are in a position to help them do things for alumni around repayment.”
Scoresby did not disclose what companies CampusLogic is eyeing but shares that his startup is currently in conversations with potential acquisitions.
In addition to ClearCost, CampusLogic offers a handful of other services for institutions and campus employees working in financial aid. Its AwardLetter notifies students if they receive financial aid; StudentForms enables students to digitally apply for financial aid; CampusMetrics serves up visualization of the analytics around student financial aid data; and ScholarshipUniverse helps match students to available scholarships.
CampusLogic claims nearly 500 university customers, including Western Governors University and Georgia State University. The latest venture growth round is more than double the company’s previous Series A ($7.5 million) and Series B ($10 million) rounds combined, bringing CampusLogic’s total raised capital to $72.5 million.
