Ranku is a discovery engine that helps students and adults navigate online education and find reputable online colleges and degree programs. It aggregates and compares options across public, private, and state schools offering online opportunities, citing institutions such as Georgetown, University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, and Arizona State University. Co‑founded by Kim Taylor and Cecilia Retelle, the company graduated from TechStars and is backed by billionaire investor Mark Cuban. According to SEC filings, Microsoft Ventures invested $350K in a seed financing. Ranku said it will work with Microsoft Ventures to expand support for students making decisions about online degrees. The company is based in New York, NY, and the article notes it is quickly gaining traction in the online-education discovery space. Ranku provides a curated comparison-shopping site that only features nonprofit online universities, letting users browse programs and compare price, platform features, and graduate outcomes. The site excludes for-profit schools and uses curation plus Facebook-login personalization to surface relevant programs. Each school page includes degree descriptions, price, GPA minimums, application dates, faculty profiles, student testimonials, and details on online interface features (mobile apps, 24/7 access, video interaction, real-time chat). Ranku currently operates as a software-as-a-service, building richer paid profiles for client schools and plans to eventually take a cut of tuition for students it signs up. The company has raised a $120,000 seed from the New York arm of accelerator TechStars. The article frames the market opportunity with 16 million students enrolled in online education, roughly 100 nonprofit schools operating at scale (about 1 million students), and $24 billion spent annually on nonprofit online universities; big schools may spend up to $50 million a year on marketing. Product improvements the team plans include richer visual previews of university interfaces, better search, and direct school-comparison tools.

Total raised

$0M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Seed

Latest activity

Nov 2013