Case study
Risely
AI agents for universities. Risely helps colleges increase enrollment, retain students, and raise more donations using AI that plugs into their existing systems.
Risely builds AI agents for higher education. Universities plug Risely into their existing systems (Salesforce, Canvas, Workday, Blackboard) and get three AI agents that handle the work admissions counselors, academic advisors, and fundraising teams don't have time for.
The Enrollment Agent responds to prospective student inquiries, qualifies leads, and guides counselors on who to call next. One university saw a 247% enrollment lift in 43 days after deploying it. Instead of letting inquiries sit in a queue for days, the agent responds in minutes and keeps students engaged through the entire admissions funnel.
The Advisor Agent monitors student performance data and flags at-risk students before they drop out. It drafts personalized outreach for advisors, so instead of one advisor manually tracking 500 students, they can effectively support 3,000. Universities using it have seen a 6x increase in advisor capacity.
The Advancement Agent helps fundraising teams identify donor prospects, manage gift pipelines, and draft outreach at scale. It surfaces alumni who are likely to give based on engagement patterns, career data, and giving history.
I joined Risely as Founding CTO and built the platform from the ground up. The biggest challenge was integrating with the dozens of different systems universities use without requiring them to migrate any data. Risely connects to what they already have and starts delivering results within 6-12 weeks.
The platform is SOC 2 Type II and FERPA compliant, backed by Y Combinator, and currently serves multiple institutions across the United States.