Direct Equity Partners LP, New York, has invested $4 million in Mascot Network Inc, a provider of Intranet services to colleges and universities. Concurrent with the investment, Mascot Network named Patricia Campbell, president and managing director of Direct Equity Partners, to a seat on Mascot Network’s board of directors.
This brings Mascot Network’s total venture capital investment to $11.2 million, according to Jason Palmer, its chief operating officer.
Founded in 1998, the Cambridge, MA-based provider of campus-specific Web-based services will use the new investment to expand its marketing to colleges and universities as well as develop its own sales force to recruit commercial partners interested in targeting college students who are registered to use Mascot Network’s Intranets on the various campuses.
Mascot Network positions itself to college and university administrators and deans of students as a way to enhance communication among students, faculty, and administration; create affinity communities within the individual college campus communities; and leverage the school’s investment in technology and new media. Palmer points out that such a service can improve a college or university’s student retention rate.
The revenue model calls for more than earnings gleaned from colleges and universities that outsource their Intranet. Corporate “partnerships” will be available to marketers who want to target a college audience at the point in the semester cycle a student is most likely to want a product or service. For example, telecom or financial services might want to target the freshman class at the beginning of the school year.
The catch, Palmer explains, is that while college and universities accept that such a Web site will be commercial, the Web site can not be “too commercial.” The start page, for example, does not have any banner ads. There are however links. As an illustration, Palmer suggests the links might lead a student to a trailer for a movie and the starting times of the film at a local theater.
The service, which also provides students with their own e-mail addresses, issues daily e-mails of what is happening on campus. The daily post is sponsored, but the advertisement appears at the bottom of the e-mail. In addition, students can opt-in for a monthly topical e-mail, which has “lots of commercial content,” says Palmer.
Mascot Network is already used in more than 30 colleges and university, reaching more than a quarter of million students. Among the participating institutions are Arizona State University, Providence College, Merrimack College, and Springfield Technical Community College.
Direct Equity Partners was launched last year with $100 million in capital by Gruppo, Levey & Co and Madison Dearborn Capital Partners III LP to invest in e-commerce direct marketing ventures. Its first venture capital investment was in Atelier America Inc.
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