dotEDU™ + ASU

dotEDU™ + ASU THE TECHNOLOGY OF STUDENT SUCCESS™

A PARTNERSHIP PROPOSAL PRESENTED BY INFLUENCE TECHNOLOGIES

Influence Technologies: We Deliver WOW

Founded in 2013, Influence Technologies is a tech-enabled services company focused on creating emotive interactive experiences powered by their proprietary iVX® technology platform. iVX—an acronym for interactive video experiences—"scales the human element” by delivering highly personalized, data-driven responsive content that increases engagement and influences better outcomes.

(L to R: Ditech Mortgage Portfolio Management; Cisco Global Collaboration Training; Assurant UK Gadget Insurance)

If content is king—IVX® is the royal throne.

The Inspiration

Our company was inspired by the founder's publishing experience in student success (designed the best-selling college textbook in North America, Becoming a Master Student) and oversight of $300+ million in higher education marketing spends from six of the ten largest proprietary schools in the country. The opportunity for leveraging technology to scale and improve performance metrics throughout the entire student lifecycle was very clear.

Thinking Waits. Feeling Acts.

The promise of interactive video technology is game-changing. Brain science has now proven that all trust, loyalty, and decision-making come from the limbic (feeling) part of our brain—which tees up video as the perfect medium to connect emotionally with students. Also, the ubiquity of mobile devices and access to Wi-Fi have contributed to Cisco Systems predicting that over 70% of all mobile traffic will be video by the end of 2017.

Digital Human Services: Scaling the human element

The iVX® platform enables us to cost-effectively "clone" the best admissions reps, guidance counselors, financial advisors, success coaches, and life-long educators to deliver the cost-effective scale required to significantly impact both student and institution success.

IVX® is the only interactive video experience platform in the market that is capable of delivering on these six powerful features:

1. Data-driven. Personalized.

Not only can the platform personalize videos to a 1:1 level at massive scale, but the personalizations include far more than a name appearing in a video. Video content such as gender, race, age, and other segmentation data can drive personalization.

2. Two-Way. Responsive.

iVX® interactive video experiences not only support decision trees, but any data inputs and question logic. For the first time, we can have conversations and "listen" to viewers, then respond accordingly.

3. Connected.

The iVX® platform architecture supports open-API big data in OR out. Now third-party information can alter a video experience in real-time, or actions within a video experience can create external actions such as phone calls, text messages, or order print materials. IVX® can also post any experience data into any existing CRM's that support APIs.

4. Actionable.

One of the most powerful features of iVX is the ability to embed calls-to-action directly in a video experience. Apply now, register, vote, buy, give, post, call. We convert video from a passive medium to a high-performing ACTIVE medium.

5. Insightful.

Every interaction and milestone with an interactive video experience is captured in our platform in the form of an "experience map" and can also trigger any of a set of robust notifications for follow-up, reporting, and campaign optimization.

6. Behavioral.

The iVX® platform allows for adaptive, sequenced content delivery based on data triggers that occur DURING an interactive video experience or from third-party data. Triggers can generate new content dynamically, fire third-party web events / scheduled actions, or generate real-time SMS or email notifications.

The iVX® Tech Stack

The iVX® platform is a non-intrusive tech layer that is powered by CRM data and business rules to then deliver personalized, interactive rich-media content that in-turn mines data from end-users to complete the feedback loop and enrich CRM data to continue the adaptive intelligence cycle.

iVX® scales Higher Education

In a perfect world, to ensure student success, we would assign a team of world-class success coaches to every student. We would individualize support choosing a school; walk them through admissions and financial aid; provide meaningful academic advising; powerful teaching and career counseling; and even support them through life-long learning. However, we don't live in a perfect world.

So we have created a tech-enabled services venture in the higher education space called 'dotEDU Technologies' to deliver scalable solutions along the entire student life-cycle.

We believe our next-generation iVX technology platform + ASU's expertise and reputation for innovation in the higher education space can create a disruptive (and valuable) ed-tech company.

dotEDU / iVX Solutions

Our proven platform enables end-to-end student lifecycle solutions that deliver a premium user experience, lower operating costs, and improve business outcomes. Following is a roadmap of our dotEDU solutions:

Marketing / Prospecting

iVX ViP™ (video PURLs) allows your institution to leverage the compelling power of interactive video in direct mail, email, and social media campaigns—delivering video experiences that are personalized 1:1 to tell your school's story and leading to a direct call-to-action.

iVX Video Purls can increase response and click-through rates up to 80%.

Inquiry/Lead Capture

An iVX SmartFunnel™ is the next-generation of landing page — delivering a high-quality "experience" comprised of personalized rich-media content, intelligent forms, and multiple contact strategies.

An iVX SmartFunnel can increase your conversion rates 37% or more.

Inquiry-to-Application

iVX QuickResponse™ is a five-day rich-media conversion solution that delivers a personalized interactive video response via email and/or SMS within seconds of the time an online inquiry form is completed. The experience customized on the fly to acknowledge the specific program of interest and overcome major objections to going to college. This solution will also improve telephone contact rates.

Responding to online inquiries within ONE minute can result in improvements in application rates as high as 184%.

Inquiry Nurture

iVX Nurture™ is a six-month rich-media lead nurture program designed to educate and empathize with prospects as they make the significant life-decision to attend college. Customized and contextual content that contain interactive experiences provide key engagement insights and empower your admissions team with robust notifications to connect at opportune times.

Over 75% of prospects do NOT apply in their first week of interest.

Aged-Lead Remine

iVX Lead Remine™ was created to optimize the significant investments colleges and universities make in marketing and lead generation. By re-connecting with prospects 9-15 months after an initial inquiry—we can re-activate interest in the large numbers of prospects who, for one reason or another chose not to start school. This 12-week "Life Gets in the Way" rich-media series also helps to dispense of aged leads.

The average ROI with iVX® Remine across all school types exceeds 280%.

Application-to-Start

iVX App-to-Sit™ is an interactive rich-media touchpoints series designed to ensure those accepted to your institution get the proper navigation through key milestones (orientation, financial aid, registration) that will enable them to start on time and with confidence. This solution is responsive to varying start dates from as quickly as two-weeks to as long as six months.

iVX® App-to-Sit is an essential extension to student retention.

Financial Aid Navigation

iVX FAFSA Plus™ helps orient students to institutional financial aid advising and resources, providing compliant, trackable, and empathetic rich-media messaging and reminders.

Financial aid is a very personal thing. Use iVX® to clone your best financial aid advisors.

Student Retention

iVX Virtual SuccessCoach™ is a "high-tech as high-touch" rich media solution that delivers powerful, pro-active data-driven coaching content to students all along their education journey. iVX interactive experiences are especially effective in "coaching" applications because two-way video allows the opportunity to solicit input and feedback with students—effectively "listening" and then being able to respond contextually. iVX interactive video content can be delivered through multiple channels including email, SMS, print, social, mobile apps, and student portals.

We can better leverage human capital in the role of coaching—while providing scale and best-practices content to deliver a true, four-year, proactive retention solution.

Student Winback

iVX Winback™ is an interactive video touchpoint series designed to reconnect with former students and encourage them to complete their degree. With data-driven video, we can appeal to career benefits based on their degree program, student loan options and even appeal specifically to the number of credit remaining to complete their degree. This program is especially effective for those colleges with both campus and online degree programs because former campus-based students can now take advantage of the flexibility of online programs.

It's 7X less expensive to keep a student in school than it is to recruit a new one.

Alumni Fundraising

iVX Give™ is a powerful interactive storytelling solution that delivers highly personalized, transactional, and viral sharing to alumni and other institutional stakeholders to increase average gift size by using data and customization logic to better connect with the passions of your alumni.

There is a direct correlation between higher donations and attribution to a specific purpose.

The dotEDU/iVX Business Model

1. We are a technology-enabled services company and our model is very simple: there are three components to every solution—content, technology, and services.

2. CONTENT: Each solution begins with "universal" best-practices content that allows your school to fast-start a pilot with low cost of entry. We follow an 80/20 rule, meaning we only need to add 20% of your brand and assets to deploy. From there, the sky is the limit to customizing content as you grow your programs.

3. TECHNOLOGY: Every iVX® solution is licensed (metered) based on the volume of unique interactive experiences created (similar to Email Service Providers). We calculate an annual estimate for each solution based on your enrollment numbers and that amount is billed in fixed monthly installments. There are discounts for bundling and/or pre-payment.

4. SERVICES: We are collaborative with your stakeholders in everything from strategy to branding and content creation to technial implementations, analytics, training and optimization.

Summary

The higher education landscape is in one of the greatest transitions of all times from the meltdown of the proprietary marketing machines, to the advent of online learning and MOOCs, to student loan debt surpassing consumer credit card debt to blue-chip University brands jumping into the 'business of education and innovation.' It's a new frontier -- and new technologies will be at the forefront of winning it.

ASU + iVX®

Let's raise the bar in higher education. Together.

THE THESIS

1. Influence Technologies, a growth-stage tecnnology company has created a proprietary interactive video platform (iVX®) that has significant application to scaling the human element (coaching, navigation, services).

2. ASU is a progressive higher education institution that has adopted a charter to seek powerful public/private partnerships in order to a) further their education mission; and 2) significantly diversify future funding sources as state dollars dry up.

3. Over the past four years, ASU (EdPlus) and Influence Technologies have developed a strong and successful partnership, delivering on several common projects including: the Starbucks College Achievement Plan, ASU Online recruitment support (through Pearson), the SKILLFUL platform, and most recently the ASU Student Success Center.

4. As part of our vertical growth strategy at Influence Technologies, we have created an entity called dotEDU Technologies, which contains an exclusive, perpetual license to our core iVX technology platform for the purposes of launching a next-generation Ed Tech company that delivers interactive-content-based student lifecycle solutions to other Ed Tech companies, as well as direct to colleges and universities. Our goal is to partner with a vertical leader / innovator in order to bring both capital and industry connections to accelerate revenue growth and company valuation.

WHY ASU?

Of the possible partners in the higher education market, we believe ASU would be the best partner for dotEDU because:

1. One of the fastest and largest revenue streams for dotEDU is other ED TECH solutions providers (Inside Track, Pearson, Sales Force, Civitas, KeyPath, etc.). With a University as a partner, they are customers and not competitors, which means we could generate huge value from virtually every ED TECH company in the space.

2. While capital is an objective, we don't feel we need much capital to grow dotEDU into a significant valuation (>$100MM) —we need industry connections and reputation. With ASU, we gain an instant incubator / adopter / innovator of our iVX solutions.

3. Not a VC. By not going the "ROI-intensive" VC route, we can also be serving a mission—as well as pursuing creation of value and contribution. We are a mission-driven company and will not compromise our core values for financial gain.

WHY INFLUENCE TECHNOLOGIES / dotEDU?

1. A unique opportunity for ASU to convert operating expenses into both an immediate revenue stream and also build long-term value. Because dotEDU is both a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and a Technology-Enabled Services (TES) model—a modest valuation multiple would be 6X gross revenue. (In 2014, PaaS multiples ranged from 6-19X) In other words, if $100k currently paid to INF as a vendor (say from Purdue University or Pearson) were put into a 50/50 JV (dotEDU); not only would ASU earn 50% of the operating margin (roughly 50% of $40k or $20k in profit; but dotEDU would increase in valuation by $600k—of which ASU also would own 50%.)

2. With dotEDU as a private Ed Tech company—ASU could drive and direct ancillary opportunities in the space through dotEDU Technologies—and gain not only the benefit of revenue sharing—but the agility and independence of the way deals are handled to be completely entrepreneurial vs. being subject the contraints of a public university.

3. Strategic alignment: The reality is every solution in the dotEDU student lifecycle line (current and future) has direct application to ASU core, campus and EdPlus ventures. From acquisition to nurture to student success to alumni fundraising. Given the scope and scale of ASU as a business alone—the current operating ROI you would get as a business application alone would exceed the stake of the investment.

THE PARTNERSHIP FRAMEWORK

• A new entity—dotEDU Technologies would be created as a 50/50 joint venture between ASU and Influence Technologies. (We have already created a 'dotEDU Technologies, LLC' legal entity and own the IP/name/URL).

• In exchange for a 50% interest in dotEDU Technologies, ASU will provide $3MM in working capital; best-efforts connections for dotEDU revenue / customers; and serve as the "innovation laboratory" for iVX® technology.

• Influence Technologies will provide a perpetual, exclusive license for iVX® technology for the higher education vertical (non-exclusive for outside higher education); dotEDU Technologies IP (name, domain, etc.); all existing and future iVX student lifecycle solutions; current INF/ASU mutual revenues and EDU sales pipeline; and operational execution of dotEDU as a going concern.

• Use of proceeds of the initial $3MM in funding would be: $1MM set aside for specific ASU initiatives / priorities (e.g. Success Center, College Achievement Plan, Win-back/Re-mine, etc. As a partner, ASU would not pay iVX license fees, only direct content and services.) This capital could also be a direct reduction in operation expenses for ASU.; $1MM to Influence Technologies as consideration for the iVX license / IP: and $1MM dedicated to growing dotEDU revenues (sales, marketing tools, travel, etc.).

• A seven-member dotEDU Board of Directors would be created with four members from the dotEDU Leadership Team and three at-large members (based on highest pedigree / alignment we can jointly recruit)

• A five person dotEDU Leadership Team would be created consisting of two designates from INF and two designates from ASU and independent financial oversight from an ASU designate.

• The business strategy would be to quickly scale revenue over the next 3-5 years based on an disruptive technology platform in the higher education space to the $20MM-$50MM (or higher) — which would be an approximate $120MM-$300M++ market cap and sell to a large Ed Tech company or VC in the space. (Note: Because this business model is extremely high-margin, it could also be conceivable to also continue being an operating entity and spinning out high annual dividends.)

• Time is of the essence. We kicked off our dotEDU strategy in JAN 2016 as a part of a larger strategy at INF to grow by focusing on specific verticals and identifying key partners in each vertical. We made a brief introduction of this idea in FEB to the EdPlus group when brainstorming about funding for the Success Center. Since APR16 (GSV), we have created a shell entity (dotEDU Technologies) and started partnership / business development efforts around dotEDU and have built a significant partner pipeline to date.

• Operationally, we would be able to grow / run dotEDU out of our offices in Denver with full support staff in all domains of execution. Additionally, we would like to establish a presence in SkySong /EdPlus. At this point, we are fully "revenue-ready" and have already been executing on various iVX® and higher education use cases which have been extremely effective—and we know we are barely scratching the surface of possibilities. A scalable student retention solution is completely missing from the market; career coaching is a growing requirement of colleges; financial aid/student loan moderation; virtual navigation (presentation / coaching around content through MOOCs and online learning); and fundraising will continue to all be areas educators must seek great scale, while achieving greater effectiveness. ###

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