Scholarly
Seattle, US · Founded 2023 · 28 employees on LinkedIn · 4 known investors
Scholarly Software offers a centralized platform for higher education institutions that consolidates faculty data from multiple systems into a single record, automates review, promotion, and tenure workflows, and uses AI to reduce manual data entry. It provides dashboards tracking faculty workload, productivity, and equity to support accreditation and strategic planning for academic administrators.
Also known as Scholarly Software · Scholarly Software, Inc.
Founders & leadership
Scholarly was founded in 2023 by Kelly Sutton.
Board
Investors · 4
Also in the syndicate · 1
Reported raises · per SEC filings
Form D private placements$4M disclosed across 1 of 2 rounds · 2024–2026
▶$4MraisedJul 2024 · 8 investors · Other TechnologyRule 506(b)
- Adam BurrowsDirector
- Kevin CowherExecutive Officer, Director
- Michael SuttonExecutive Officer, Director
- Offering amount
- $4M
- Amount sold
- $4M
- Proceeds to insiders
- $540K
- First sale
- Jul 2024
- Incorporated
- Corporation, Delaware, 2023
- Federal exemptions
- 06b
Source: SEC EDGAR Form D. Amounts as filed; amended filings shown once at their latest values.
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Scholarly Software, Inc. builds a faculty information system for colleges and universities that consolidates faculty data from multiple institutional systems into a single system of record and powers faculty affairs workflows. The platform covers annual evaluations, promotion and tenure cases, CV management, faculty activity reporting, credential management, sabbatical applications, and research benchmarking, with configurable review workflows that reflect committee reviews, external review letters and multi-step approvals specific to academic careers rather than standard HR processes.
The product includes an AI suite that structures unstructured content — for example converting a faculty CV into structured profile data — answers questions in natural language, and reduces manual data entry across annual reporting, promotion and tenure, and accreditation work. Live dashboards give administrators access to data on workload, productivity, workload equity, leave planning, accreditation and tenure success rates without manual data pulls. Scholarly markets configurations for medical schools, colleges of arts and sciences, business schools, law schools, engineering schools and art schools, addressing discipline-specific outputs such as publications, citations, grants, exhibitions, media and performances.
The company states it is built on a security-first foundation with SOC 2 Type II compliance and enterprise single sign-on, and publishes accessibility and security documentation for institutional IT reviewers.
Founding story
Scholarly was co-founded by Rusty Cowher and Kelly Sutton after direct feedback from faculty, deans and administrators about the administrative burden of faculty affairs. Cowher's close family ties to higher education administration sparked his interest in the area, and Sutton's view that faculty were underserved by modern software led him to co-found the company.
Business model
B2B software sold to higher education institutions, with the platform positioned as the system of record and system of action for faculty affairs offices; the company reports reaching cash-flow breakeven and 100% client retention since founding.
Institutional software sales to colleges and universities; the company reported revenue growth of more than 600% year-over-year in the year preceding its April 2026 fundraise.
Traction
Reported support for more than 15,000 faculty activity reports, promotion and tenure cases and sabbatical applications on the platform, 100% client retention since founding, cash-flow breakeven, and revenue growth over 600% year-over-year as of April 2026. Named customers and references include the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Valparaiso University.
Latest developments
In April 2026 Scholarly announced a $3M raise from Bienville Capital and Range Ventures to accelerate product development in agentic AI, expand operations and customer success teams, and scale go-to-market. Recent company posts cover a Valparaiso University faculty activity reporting deployment and the launch of Scholarly's API.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history
Market position
Positions itself as an AI-native, and per its investor the first agentic AI, platform for higher education faculty affairs, a function it describes as still commonly run on spreadsheets, binders and legacy systems.
Purpose-built for faculty affairs rather than adapted from general HR software, accommodating multiple appointments, academic timelines such as tenure clocks and reappointment reviews, and multi-step promotion and tenure processes; combines centralized faculty data with AI-driven data entry elimination and live analytics dashboards.
Technology
Cloud platform with secure API integrations to institutional systems that normalize data into a single faculty data model with automated syncs. Named integrations include Canvas by Instructure, Oracle, Workday, Ellucian, ORCID, Clarivate Web of Science, and ONE45 by Acuity Insights. AI and agentic AI features handle CV parsing, structuring of unstructured content and natural-language querying. The company cites SOC 2 Type II compliance and enterprise SSO, and offers a public API.
Go-to-market
Direct enterprise sales driven by demo requests through the company website, supported by an advisory network of faculty affairs administrators who provide product input; proceeds from the 2026 raise are being applied to expanding operations, customer success and go-to-market efforts.
Faculty, deans, provosts and faculty affairs offices at higher education institutions, including large R1 research universities, regional public universities, academic medical institutions and small liberal arts colleges, across medical, business, law, engineering, art and arts and sciences schools.
Geography
United States, with a Colorado office in Denver (also referenced as Arvada) and a Washington office in Seattle; customers include institutions across the U.S.
History
The company launched a faculty information system for higher education and built an integration and AI feature set covering evaluations, promotion and tenure, and reporting. In April 2026 it announced a $3M growth capital raise from existing investors, following a year in which it reached cash-flow breakeven and grew revenue over 600% year-over-year.
Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Timeline · 3
launches, deals, and filingsCompany blog post describing Valparaiso University's replacement of spreadsheet-based faculty activity reporting with Scholarly.
Scholarly announced it raised $3M in growth capital from existing investors Bienville Capital and Range Ventures, to be used for product development in agentic AI, expanding operations and customer success teams, and scaling go-to-market.
$3M source ↗
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
▸Research sources · 8
primary sources listed
- Scholarlyscholarlysoftware.com · web
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Scholarly do?
- Scholarly is an AI-native faculty information system that centralizes faculty data and automates evaluations, promotion and tenure workflows.
- Who founded Scholarly?
- Scholarly was founded by Kelly Sutton in 2023.
- Who are Scholarly's investors?
- Scholarly's investors include Range VC, Range Technology Ventures, Service Provider Capital.
- How much funding has Scholarly raised?
- Scholarly has disclosed $4M raised across 1 of its 2 known rounds.
- Where is Scholarly headquartered?
- Scholarly is headquartered in Seattle, US.