Press & Media

In 2019, U.S. Air Force veteran Manny Smith and two partners were inspired to create EdVisorly. It’s a mobile app that makes it easier for those community college students who want to earn a bachelor’s degree to transfer to four-year universities. “I realized I could combine my technology product manager experience from the military with my passion to help students,” says Manny, EdVisorly’s CEO. With the app, students can explore schools, connect with admissions teams, and apply to multiple universities with just a few clicks. EdVisorly’s proprietary EddyAI technology also decreases the time it takes admissions teams to process transcripts and evaluate transfer credits. “We want to build a bridge from community college to universities,” says Manny, “and help universities better recruit transfer students at scale.” As part of Google for Startups in 2024, EdVisorly refined their business model and technology. “We made more progress in two months than I made in the first 18 months of building EdVisorly,” Manny says. The 25-person team uses BigQuery, Google’s data analytics platform, to help decide how to best help students navigate steps like transferring their credits. “We make so many product decisions because of BigQuery,” says Lizzie Allison, EdVisorly's chief innovation officer, “starting from what transcripts we can automate while ensuring data accuracy.” The team streamlines business workflows with Gemini, using it to write emails, summarize documents, and create presentations. Lizzie says, “We ask the team, ‘How can you optimize your work with AI so you can spend more time with our clients?’” Adds Manny, “AI has the capacity across everything you do in your business to improve an integration or a function. Every business should consider how to use it.”

Google recently revealed the 20 recipients of its 2024 Google for Startups Founders Funds for Black and Latino entrepreneurs. This year, the focus is entirely on AI-centric startups, emphasizing Google’s dedication to promoting diversity in AI and aiding underrepresented founders in securing necessary funding.

Google selects 20 artificial intelligence (AI)-focused startups and their founding teams to join the 2024 Black and Latino Founders Fund.

Drexel is partnering with EdVisorly, a platform that uses artificial intelligence to streamline the transfer process.

There’s no shortage of innovation by Black leaders in the evolving tech industry. Every day, Black programmers, coders and engineers are making strides in technology to benefit their communities and revolutionize the digital landscape forever.

The university partnered with EdVisorly, a mobile-friendly app that helps connect transfer students with Sonoma State and provides easy to access information on ADT and requirements for transfer.

If you build it, will it work? And how will you measure it? Those are vital questions for education technology innovators as they build ventures, secure funding and expand their impact. In a crowded marketplace with fierce competition for scarce dollars, savvy entrepreneurs embrace research to inspire, hone and scale their businesses.

The 2024 Google for Startups cohort includes Manny Smith, the founder of EdVisorly, a platform to help college students apply to public and private universities through its mobile app.

Google has announced the 20 recipients of the company’s Google for Startups Founders Funds, including its fifth Black Founders Fund and third Latino Founders Fund. According to a press, released for the first time since the funds’ inception, all of the fund’s recipients are AI-powered or AI-augmented companies.

Manny Smith, Founder and CEO of EdVisorly shares his experiences in higher education, his personal journey and he highlights the work happening at EdVisorly, and online platform for helping students transfer and succeed.

We dig into that and the following topics: ✓ why transfer rates from community colleges to four-year programs are so low (only 18% 😱) ✓ how EdVisorly is helping students improve the university transfer process and the potential 10 billion-dollar impact of doing so ✓ balancing company culture and competitiveness within a startup

We now add an Impact Investee Partner as a Board member for the first time – Manny Smith is the Founder and CEO of EdVisorly, an edtech company which received an investment from SV2 this past year. We are delighted to welcome Bill, Aarti, Elaine, and Manny to the SV2 Board.