Risely AI

What do they actually do

Risely AI sells an advisor-facing assistant for colleges that plugs into campus systems (SIS, LMS, CRM), pulls each student’s data into one place, and helps advisors act. It flags at-risk students, drafts personalized outreach and follow-ups, prepares short advising briefs and success plans, and writes/organizes notes back into campus systems so records stay current (risely.ai).

They position deployments as fast with engineer support and emphasize higher-ed compliance (FERPA, HECVAT-ready) and audit trails (risely.ai). The company reports early customers across private colleges, public systems, and online universities, plus initial revenue around $8k MRR posted on their YC profile (YC company page).

Who are their target customer(s)

• Director of Academic Advising / Student Success lead: Advisors must check multiple systems and inboxes to find who needs help, so at-risk students are missed. Time is spent drafting outreach, taking notes, and chasing paperwork rather than meeting students; any purchase needs clear retention or time-saved evidence (risely.ai, YC page).
• Registrar or Records Manager: Handles high-volume, rules-heavy tasks (registration changes, records, official notes) that are repetitive and error-prone. Needs strict audit trails and correct write-back, with strong compliance and human review before granting any read/write access (risely.ai).
• Chief Information Officer / Campus IT leader: Owns integrations and vendor security across a patchwork of legacy systems and long review cycles. Needs to enable data access quickly while minimizing FERPA/privacy and infrastructure risk (risely.ai, YC page).
• Enrollment Management or Provost-level retention owner: Responsible for improving retention/completion but lacks staff capacity for personalized outreach at scale. Requires proof the tool moves outcomes and can deploy across programs without endless pilots (YC page).
• Research administration / Faculty admin lead: Grant paperwork, approvals, and compliance tasks consume time. Wants reliable automation that reduces repetitive admin without creating compliance gaps; needs clear auditability and institutional controls (YC page).

How would they acquire their first 10, 50, and 100 customers

• First 10: Founder-led, high-touch pilots using existing university relationships; founders run demos, security reviews, and bespoke integrations to get IT signoff and convert pilots by proving time-saved and usable advising outputs (YC page, risely.ai).
• First 50: Codify the integration/security playbook (HECVAT/FERPA templates, connectors), hire 1–2 sales engineers for technical evals, and publish case studies on advisor time-saved and flag accuracy; pair targeted outreach with regional advising/retention conferences and referrals (risely.ai, YC page).
• First 100: Add channel partners (SIS integrators, consultancies, associations) and productize common connectors plus a compliance pack for smaller schools; invest in customer success and institutional certifications to reduce CIO/registrar friction and enable multi-department rollouts (risely.ai).

What is the rough total addressable market

Top-down context:

The direct category (student success/retention platforms) is estimated around $6.18B globally in 2024 (DataIntelo). The broader higher-education technology market is much larger (tens of billions) (Grand View Research).

Bottom-up calculation:

U.S. SAM illustration: 3,542 degree‑granting institutions × $26,265 median private B2B SaaS ACV ≈ ~$93M/year (NCES + NCES table, SaaS Capital). Higher ACVs for enterprise-wide deployments would push this into the few-hundred-million range.

Assumptions:

• Pricing benchmark uses median private B2B SaaS ACV as a conservative proxy, not Risely’s actual price.
• Target customers are U.S. degree‑granting institutions as the near-term serviceable market.
• Scope assumes the current advisor-focused product (not registrar/research admin expansions).

Who are some of their notable competitors

• EAB (Navigate360): Large higher-ed CRM/engagement suite for centralized student data, early alerts, and advisor outreach workflows; overlaps on alerting/outreach but comes from an incumbent enterprise CRM stack rather than an AI-agent-first approach.
• Starfish (EAB): Advising/case‑management platform for early alerts, appointments, success plans, and degree planning; direct overlap on advisor workflows and prioritized lists, but primarily workflow/case management rather than automated drafting and note write-back.
• Civitas Learning: Analytics‑centric student success platform combining SIS/LMS signals into risk scores and recommendations; strong on analytics and reporting vs. agent-driven drafting and automated write‑backs.
• Anthology (Reach / Student): Enterprise edtech vendor with student systems and engagement tools (e.g., behavior‑triggered communications via Reach); competes on data unification and automated outreach within an incumbent vendor ecosystem.
• AdmitHub / Mainstay: Conversational AI/chatbot for enrollment and student support at scale (SMS/web chat), with published trial results on reducing summer melt; overlaps with student‑facing assistant plans more than advisor‑agent workflows (press coverage).