Inigral’s Schools App creates a closed community of students within Facebook’s platform. Retro Venture Partners and Founders Fund also contributed to what totaled to a $4 million round of Series B funding.
About 11 schools use customized versions of the app, which Inigral’s CEO and founder Michael Staton describes as “a cross between Yammer and Twitter.” Essentially, each student gets access to two real-time streams. One provides updates from everyone at the school. The other contains updates that only pertain to topics the student has indicated she or he is interested in. Students can join groups and interact without friending other participants.
"The key is the way that we're designed is to help people who don't know each other get to know each other,” Staton says. “Whereas Facebook is designed to have people who already know each other stay in touch with each other."
Schools App fills the void that Facebook left when it removed the requirement to sign up with a school e-mail address, its education networks and courses features in order to pursue a larger market. The app, which launched in 2009, turns the Facebook platform into a school community again — a function that turns out to be quite important.
Engagement with peers and school activities is widely regarded as one of the most important factors in whether a student graduates. When the ACT surveyed about 1,000 academic officers in 2004 to gauge what led students to stay enrolled in postsecondary schools, it found first-year p rograms that encourage...
