Description:
GrantMe is a Canadian technology company that has a goal of guiding students through their educational journey in Canada. Through their platform and services students receive assistance applying for financial aid such as scholarships, bursaries and grants. Students can also use the platform for assistance with application support getting into their top choice schools and landing high paying jobs. GrantMe achieved $3 million in revenue (CDN) in 2020 and over $5 million (CDN) in 2021 and has yet to raise any outside capital.
Bio Founder:
To pay her way through her Bachelor Commerce degree at the University of British Columbia Madison Guy, a varsity athlete and captain of the UBC woman’s soccer team went through an exhausting process of finding and applying for grants and scholarships. When other students noticed her success and started to ask for help, she recognized a business venture opportunity. Madison launched GrantMe in 2018 to help other students find funding and to make the process easier. The team seems to be composed mostly of other young professionals and recent university graduates. Many of the employees seem to have grown within the company and have had their own personal experience applying for scholarships with success. Their advisory team seems be much more senior then the staff with diversified senior level experience in industries such as Finance, Retail and Technology and Education.
Reflections:
I came across GrantMe through my own job at UBC Sauder as they have been involved with hiring many student interns. When I saw that the company was run by a recent Sauder alumni, I was intrigued to learn more. I feel that it is a really interesting example of an entrepreneur recognizing a gap in the market and creating disruption by providing a new service to address the gap. I’ve been following the company for the last year and a half and its great to see the growth that they have had and the addition of new services such as coaching and university application support. As a current masters student, while I have not been a user of the service, I am interested in learning more about potential scholarships that I could apply for.
What a great service, I love the empathy behind the intent in building this product. My co-worker is also working on her Master’s but through a private university. It costs over $50,000 and navigating through the available scholarships, bursaries, and grants has been overwhelming.
I love this post and think it’s a great example of finding and expanding on a niche market. There is a definite need for this type of support for students and graduates, the breadth of services GrantMe has been able to provide is very impressive, and I am confident the demand will only continue to increase as tuition fees rise and more people are looking at either entering the workforce or changing their career paths (i.e., they may be looking at applying to different industries and would benefit from outside assistance). I also am shocked to read that no outside capital has been raised, which is a good proof of concept.