Our Investment in Verto Education
Oh the places you will go….GSV is excited to be an investor in Verto Education, which recently announced its $6.3 Million seed round. Verto tackles some of the biggest issues facing students today: affordability and access. Verto students spend their Freshman year abroad and earn credits while they experience the World. Travel has always been an incredible teacher and now, Verto has integrated academics and adventure to create a launchpad into college. For Verto’s 28 and growing university partners, Verto helps create visibility for admissions and fill seats, which is an increasing issue for many universities.
Today, colleges are losing up to 30% of freshmen to drop-outs while gap years and alternative/international higher education experiences have gotten more and more popular. Verto has built the first and only accredited freshman year abroad program that gives full class credits, financial aid, and guaranteed admission with sophomore standing at partner colleges. The team is led by Mitch Gordon, Mallory Meiser, and Ben Welbourn, multiple-time entrepreneurs with extraordinary drive and deep expertise in the space (#People).
We believe this business is riding a critically important wave at a time when low retention, freshmen year dropout rates, and rising enrollment acquisition costs are impacting institutions all over the world (#Purpose). There is also a rising interest in gap years with over 1M high school seniors each year wanting to take a gap year, but only ~50K students doing so due to the prohibitively high average price tag of ~$25K. Verto’s model delivers a high return on education by lowering costs while enhancing learning outcomes and democratizing gap years for incoming college freshmen. The offering is clearly resonating — the 28 partners today include universities such as Bucknell, The University of Oregon, Rhodes College, and the University of Tennessee, all signed in less than a year. (#Predictability)
Hundreds of students have already graduated or applied to Verto, and are currently pursuing degrees at partner schools. Demand is huge (#Potential) — there are 300,000+ “empty” seats across the U.S. alone in colleges every year. Verto can uniquely help schools attract and retain transfer students at scale. The modern enrollment management program is a $6+ Billion market today, with the opportunity for tremendous growth. Building out the three-sided marketplace of Schools, Programs, and Students should allow Verto to “own” this market and be a core catalyst in driving a high Return on Education (#Product).
