Versation
The first and only student ambassador app for colleges and universities.
| Date | Investors | Amount | Round |
|---|---|---|---|
| investor | €0.0 | round | |
N/A | Acquisition | ||
| Total Funding | 000k | ||
Versation, founded in 1999 by John Hayden, Miguel McKelvey, and Zach Hoffman, began as a provider of web-based software for educational institutions catering to international students. The company's genesis was influenced by the management team's collective experiences living and traveling overseas, fostering a belief in the value of cross-cultural education. This conviction drove their commitment to facilitating similar experiences for others. Based in Portland, Oregon, Versation initially focused on a suite of products designed to recruit new students, engage current ones, and manage alumni relationships.
The firm's client base included prestigious universities such as New York University, UCLA, and Georgetown, as well as large private education companies like Berlitz. The business operated on a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model, providing its educational software to a global clientele. In 2011, the company was noted as being accelerator/incubator backed. Sometime later, the original business, also known as English, Baby!, ceased operations.
The company has since pivoted to an AI-driven conversation enablement platform under the name Versational. This evolution broadened its target market beyond education to include sectors like Sales, Marketing, Recruiting, and Project Management. The current platform automates note-taking, provides actionable insights from conversations, and features custom AI-powered topic tracking. By leveraging behavioral science and analytics, Versational aims to enhance the value of conversations and improve information recall. Its services are designed to integrate with existing tools to optimize business processes. Revenue is presumably generated through subscription-based access to this platform.
Keywords: educational software, international student recruitment, alumni management, SaaS, EdTech, conversation enablement, AI note-taking, conversation intelligence, sales productivity, marketing insights, recruiting automation, project management tools, behavioral analytics, virtual education, customer conversation analysis, John Hayden, Miguel McKelvey, Zach Hoffman, Portland startup, cross-cultural education