July 03, 2023 | Read Online

🦄 Unicorner Startup of the Week: SmartPass

✍️ Notes from the Editors

Happy Monday everyone! And, if you’re in the United States, Happy Independence Day weekend!

Today’s article dates all the way back to our SF Founder Funder Happy Hour in February. That event brought together SmartPass CEO Peter Luba and today’s awesome contributor and our friend, Sameera Pant! When she's not thinking/talking/reading about startups (though to be fair, this habit is what led her to Unicorner!) you can find Sameera running, plotting her next cup of coffee, or on Twitter. Give her a follow!

Also—as of today, we’re introducing referral rewards! If one person signs up using your unique link, we’ll send you a list of 100+ early-stage startups we’ve covered, with updated funding metrics. More on this at the bottom of the email!

- Arek and Ethan 🦄

The ultimate solution to K-12 hallway management

A digital hall pass serving over a thousand schools across the United States, SmartPass provides a comprehensive digital record of a student’s time away from class. With a simple setup process, the company presents a platform solution to maximize student safety and administrative efficiency, all without using GPS location tracking and integrating alongside pre-existing student information systems.

🔗 Check it out: smartpass.app

💰 Business Model

SmartPass has standard and pro pricing plans alongside a digital ID add-on, generating income through annual school contracts priced $2.99 per student with variation depending on added features.

📈 Traction and Fundraising

Raised undisclosed seed round led by Reach Capital and joined by Edovate Capital, Precursor Ventures, Jinal Jhaveri (founder of SchoolMint), Adi Agashe, Jim McVety, and a few others
Product is compliant with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA), and the Student Privacy Pledge

👫 Founders

Peter Luba, CEO: Previously Associate Product Manager @ Salesforce, Lead Product Designer @ Product Alliance, Product Manager @ uGlobally, Computer Science & Business @ Lehigh University
Dhruv Sringari, CTO: Previously Software Engineer @ DoltHub, Software Engineer @ Microsoft, Software Engineer @ Capital One, Computer Science @ Penn State University

📖 Founder Story

Peter Luba and Dhruv Sringari went to high school together. During their senior year, the school invested in Chromebooks for their students, which led the pair to brainstorm what else could be digitized inside the classroom. They decided to develop SmartPass, a digital alternative to the sign-out sheets and wooden hall passes students use when they go to the bathroom. While the initiative took a back seat when the two went to college, SmartPass garnered traffic throughout the four years and eventually grew to around a hundred schools using the platform. The growing customer base led Luba and Sringari to hire their first sales executive, growing those hundred customers to a thousand in six months. “We quickly realized this was not going to be something we would do on the side for that much longer and we jumped right into it,” Luba said. The pair have now been working full-time on the product since early this year.

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🔮 Our Analysis

According to Luba, there are two kinds of education management software or EMS—student information systems, which store and track information like grades, attendance, etc., and learning management systems, which are used to manage, deliver, and track educational modules. SmartPass presents a novel third category of activity management software, a method to monitor and keep students safe and engaged in an academic setting throughout the day.

Other than finding footing in a new category of EMS, SmartPass also finds strength in its extensibility. While the platform started as a simple alternative to bathroom/hallway passes, schools are now finding different ways to use SmartPass, from tracking everything from pick-up and parking systems to prom ticketing. In some ways, the product emulates an AirTable for school business processes, Luba said. In fact, while the average school uses SmartPass to monitor 20 different activities, only 10 or so are supported by the software. The other half are usually workarounds the institution develops to suit its own needs, another reason why one of the company’s current priorities is to double down on building more integrations for its users, as seen in the company’s Summer 2023 Release, linked below.

“School buildings are changing so much, teachers and administrators need flexible processes if they want to spin up a new type of process or activity,” Luba said. “Instead of doing it on paper or on a spreadsheet, they’re going to do it on SmartPass.”

The one challenge of the platform is the constant monitoring—there have been concerns from students, parents, and administrators on the potential lack of privacy and racial profiling the software could lead to. In our opinion, it comes down to the care put into implementation. With well-thought-out execution on a school administration’s end, keeping in mind the platform’s original goals of encouraging safety and productive use of the school day, SmartPass could overcome this obstacle and prove to be both category-making and category-defining in the post-COVID edtech boom.