Frequently asked questions

ASU takes 1% equity, paid in kind rather than in cash. Instead of writing you a check, we give you access to the university, our network, and the chance to prove your product works at scale.

Every pilot is paid. When a department puts money on the line, it commits the people and attention your pilot needs to actually work — a free trial rarely gets that.

Usually 12-18 months, depending on how complex your pilot is. That covers designing the pilot, running it, collecting data, analyzing the results, and planning for adoption across the university.

Plan on 20-30% of your week during the active pilot phases. That goes to stakeholder meetings, user feedback sessions, collecting data, check-ins with us, and keeping your ASU relationships healthy.

ASU ScaleU is an accelerator for early-stage EdTech companies. We connect you to Arizona State University's 190,000 students and 4,000 faculty and help you run real pilots to prove your product works.

Most accelerators give you money and mentorship. We give you a customer. ScaleU is about direct access to 190,000 students for real pilots, plus the credibility of ASU's name and a track record other programs can't point to — 80% of ASU students use a company from our portfolio. We work on in-kind equity, not cash.

You should have some traction — usually $10k+ in monthly recurring revenue (MRR) or 500+ active users. Your product needs to be ready for a real deployment across an institution, not still in early beta.

What we mostly offer is access and evidence. We connect you directly with the university stakeholders who run pilots, and those pilots produce the outcome data you need to close a Series A or an enterprise contract. We give strategic guidance too, but the core of what we do is getting your product tested inside the real institution.

No. But you should expect to come to ASU's campuses regularly for stakeholder meetings and to manage your pilot. Plenty of our companies are based elsewhere and still keep a close working relationship with our team.

A successful pilot can lead to university-wide adoption, which means real revenue and a case study you can take to the next school. You'll also gain access to ASU's broader network of university partners and the credibility of having proven your product at a school this size.

Not every pilot leads to adoption, and that's fine. Even one that falls short gives you real market feedback and product insights, and often points to a change that makes the company stronger. You keep the ASU network, the mentor relationships, and everything you learned along the way.

We look for fit, not a competition to win. We want companies whose product lines up with what ASU is trying to fix and can make a real difference in higher education. How many companies we take on each year depends on what the university needs and how much we can support well.

We care more about plumbing than shiny new things. We want solutions that fix the broken administrative pipes — financial aid, the registrar, IT security — as much as classroom tools. If you solve a painful, behind-the-scenes problem that quietly costs universities millions, we want to talk.

To run at our scale, your product has to hold up in a real enterprise. For classroom tools that usually means LTI 1.3; for operations it means writing back through an API. Manual workarounds like CSV uploads generally won't keep up.

Yes — prior funding doesn't rule you out. Plenty of our companies raised seed or Series A money before or during ScaleU. We aren't trying to be your main investor; we're here for the access and the proof a pilot gives you.

Not during the accelerator itself. The value we add is access, real pilots, and the proof that comes from them — not a cash check. Once you finish the program, you can raise through InvestU (ASU's angel investor network) and from ASU directly.

ASU is a good fit if you're building for large higher-education settings, need to test with a diverse student population, want ASU's credibility behind your future sales, and are ready to put in the work of building real relationships across the university.

You submit through our portal, have a conversation with our team, present to the ASU decision-makers who matter, and then we make a call based on fit. Start to finish, it usually takes 8-12 weeks.

Yes. Just plan ahead for the practical parts — visas for travel to Arizona, any regulatory or compliance issues, and the logistics of running a U.S.-based pilot from abroad.

You join our alumni network and keep access to ASU resources, mentorship, and possible follow-on work — plus introductions to other universities through ASU's network. The relationship doesn't stop when the program ends.

Companies that finish ScaleU and perform well in their pilots can raise through ASU-affiliated channels — InvestU, ASU's angel investor network, and direct investment from ASU itself. That backing brings capital and the continued credibility of ASU's name as you scale beyond the university.

We'll tell you what would make it work down the road. Plenty of companies take that feedback, come back later, and get in. We stay in touch with promising teams and can point you to other ASU resources in the meantime.