Buffalo-based Arbol is officially launching customers on its financial platform, and it's raising funds to support that growth.
The startup gives students a holistic view of their financial situations while providing them access to campus resources and incentivizing financially healthy behavior. It also gives colleges real-time data to strategically help students.
“A big part of the problem is a leaky faucet,” said co-founder Dave Gonzalez. “(Colleges) can’t keep students in through four years of college. That’s also contributing to enrollment challenges.”
The startup, based at 701 Ellicott St., Buffalo, recently raised $350,000 as part of its pre-seed funding round. $100,000 came from the WNY Impact Investment Fund, which aims to put money into startups with commercial potential that are also making a positive impact on the community. $250,000 came from the University at Buffalo’s Innovation Seed Fund, following a previous investment from the university’s Cultivator program.
Gonzalez expects to raise a total of $750,000 by the end of the summer.
The funds will be used to support the four local colleges – SUNY Buffalo State University, SUNY Erie, Canisius University and Villa Maria College – that will launch on Arbol’s platform through this fall. Gonzalez anticipates eight regional schools on the startup’s platform by the end of this year.
With the onboarding of four local schools on its platform, Arbol will be serving about 1,000 students. The strategy is to get colleges to bring some students on board, for Arbol to proof its return on investment “right away” and scale up for bigger contracts.
The pre-seed round will also help the business build product features on its platform and expand to new customers and new regions outside of Western New York. The latter is a goal for 2024.
“(It) ultimately allows us to drive market validation that unlocks future growth,” Gonzalez said.
That includes bringing on a full-time customer success manager this month instead of using a contractor. Now, there are three Arbol team members, including Gonzalez and his co-founder Fabio Osorio.
The startup expects to expand beyond Upstate New York through a three-pronged strategy. One is using its five-member campus advisory board, made up of local college administrators, to be referred to other prospective customers.
Second, the business plans to use partner organizations, which have colleges as members, to reach more schools.
Finally, Arbol aims to leverage its team’s existing network of colleges.
“Right now, there’s plenty of growth with our board of reference-able customers,” he said.
Arbol is the seventh local company to acknowledge a private, growth-oriented round of funding this year. The list includes Azuna ($486,000), Immunaeon ($600,000), Latte ($100,000), Aerovec ($178,000), CleanFiber ($6.7 million), HELIXintel ($11 million) and Arbol ($350,000).
