Scholly, the scholarship app best known for being featured on Shark Tank, recently announced multiple bulk purchases by both government and educational institutions.
Scholly works like this: After signing up, a student inputs basic information like race, GPA, and gender. The program then searches its database of over 20,000 scholarships and displays the ones for which the student qualifies.
My Brother’s Keeper, an initiative started by President Obama to address opportunity gaps faced by boys and young men of color, recently announced it would purchase 275,000 downloads of Scholly to distribute to participants.
The company also recently announced deals with both the city of Memphis and the state of Montana, both of which are purchasing the app for every high-school senior in their respective region.
While the app still retails on iOS and Android for $.99, the company is shifting its efforts to focus on bulk sales and corporate sponsorships. Christopher Grey, CEO and Co-Founder of Scholly, said that these large deals are ideal because they further reduce the barrier of entry for students needing financial aid.
In addition to government purchases, Grey says that over 100 high schools have purchased the app for their students. In return, Scholly provides the institutions with statistics on app usage and scholarship acceptance rates from the school’s students.
While the company hasn’t yet shared total download numbers, Scholly was the top selling paid app in the iOS App Store for more than four days and has spent almost three months in the top five in the education category.
Additionally, the company has helped students raise over $15 million dollars in scholarships, and increased scholarship application rates by more than 3,000 percent.
The company is currently raising a seed round and working on expanding and training a dedicated bulk-purchase sales team.