Dive Brief:
- TargetX, a Pennsylvania-based customer relationship management firm for higher ed, has acquired Uversity, a San Francisco company focused on student enrollment and retention.
- Uversity claims to have fostered 3.9 million student connections through UChat and Schools App, which gives admitted students a chance to meet each other online and provides schools with social behavioral data predicting enrollment probabilities.
- The acquisition gives TargetX additional strength for its CRM offerings and access to Uversity’s patent-pending predictive analytics tools.
Dive Insight:
Uversity launched in 2007 as Inigral and has raised $11.4 million since then, including contributions from the Gates Foundation. Its apps track real-time student behavior and link this data to yield management, enrollment, and retention. With increasing competition for qualified students, colleges and universities are under intense pressure to make sure students who are admitted show up for classes. Personalized communication forums for these students give schools the chance to offer individual attention and track students’ likelihood of enrollment. In some cases, addressing student concerns identified through these forums makes the difference between a student choosing one school over another.