Penn State highlights startup by Penn State alumnus that aims to address student debt

Penn State recently highlighted a startup founded by alumnus James Aversa that uses crowdfunding to help students with college debt.

The startup, SponsrU, provides an online solution that aims to help reduce student loan debt through personal mentorship, employee benefits, and performance incentives.

Aversa founded SponsrU in 2017 when he was a student at Penn State. He entered PennTAP’s Inc.U competition, which led to pitching SponsrU at the 2018 Invent Penn State Venture and IP Conference. The startup has since received outside investment and is in the process of an angel fundraising round.

“Inc.U was an incredible opportunity to grow as a founder,” Aversa said. “I was as well-prepared as I could possibly be, but still nowhere near ready for investment at that point. I didn’t realize that at the time, but that’s is indicative of how my experience as an entrepreneur has been this entire time.”

To use SponsrU, students set goals and decide on measurable outcomes that mentors can track. Mentors can start sponsoring a student if they like their goals but end their assistance if the student stops meeting them. Businesses and organizations can also use the system to set goals and milestones to incentivize employees and members with bonuses or extra time off.

SponsrU has been operating for longer than a year and has that time developing the core features of its product and building its marketing and strategy foundation. The team is now moving into a round of angel funding in which they plan to focus their resources on design and marketing.

“In my mind, SponsrU is on the tail end of the proving phase,” Aversa said. “Every company has a different timeline for each phase and for us, the proving stage has been long and painstaking. I’m hoping being a founder gets easier as we go, but I don’t think that will be the case.”