The University Network

What The University Network does

The University Network (TUN, Inc.) is a New York-based, privately held education platform operating since 2014 and built around TUN AI, a domain-specific assistant launched in 2017 and refined through 200+ iterations across 20+ specialized models. TUN aggregates scholarships, internships, free online courses from 200+ universities and organizations, student discounts, school profiles, and editorial resources into a single consumer-facing site and mobile-accessible experience, reaching 13 million students monthly and a 600,000-subscriber newsletter list. TUN AI handles conversational queries and recommendation matching across scholarships, financial aid, majors, courses, internships, and career paths, exposing vectorized content for retrieval by both internal users and external AI platforms such as ChatGPT and Perplexity.

TUN's revenue model is fully B2B and free on the student side. The company operates tiered content partnerships (Impact Studio) with pricing from $129 transactional placements up to multi-year strategic integrations, runs a Press Release Distribution service priced at $129-$1,500 per release, sells internship promotion and AI model sponsorship to employers and financial institutions, manages end-to-end scholarship programs for partners (Golden 1 Credit Union, CFP Board Center for Financial Planning, among others), and monetizes brand discounts via an affiliate/referral marketplace with consumer brands such as Nike, Adobe, Apple, Samsung, and Spotify. B2B buyers include employers (Tesla, Google, Microsoft, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Disney, L'Oréal, KPMG, Micron, Amazon, Meta), universities (Yale, Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, etc.) and financial institutions (Golden 1, First National Bank).

The company is headquartered at 99 Wall Street, New York, employs 51-100 people, and has raised only one disclosed funding round of $225,000 in January 2022. Distribution channels combine SEO on a DA 63 domain, Google News publisher status, email, organic social (TikTok, Pinterest, Facebook, X, LinkedIn), and a small direct sales operation handling enterprise partnerships via [email protected].

Name

The University Network

Legal name

TUN, Inc.

Website

https://tun.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2014

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

51–100 employees

Short description

The University Network (TUN) is a New York-based education platform providing 13 million monthly students with AI-powered guidance, scholarship matching, free courses from 200+ universities, internships, and student discounts, monetizing through B2B services including content partnerships, press release distribution, scholarship management, internship promotion, and AI model sponsorships.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Education Technology (Student Resources Platform)

NAICS

Educational Support Services (611710), Educational Services (611)

SIC

Services-Educational Services (8200), Services-Computer Programming Services (7371)

akta.pro primary industry

Career & College Readiness Platforms (Guidance, Planning, Scholarships) (EDAJAMAO)

akta.pro secondary industry

Online/Hybrid Lifelong Learning Platforms & Open Enrollment Programs (EDAAAEAL)

Keywords

• Student resource platform
• Scholarship search
• Education AI assistant
• Internship marketplace
• Student discounts aggregator

Headquarters

HQ city

New York

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B and B2C

Offering type

Digital Commerce or Content

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Infrastructure, Others

Revenue model

1. Scholarship Management Services: TUN designs, manages, promotes, and disburses scholarships under partner organizations' brands. Full end-to-end IRS-compliant lifecycle management including design, legal, applications, review, disbursement, and impact reporting. Revenue generated from service fees paid by corporations, foundations, financial institutions, and universities.
2. Content Partnerships (Impact Studio): Tiered content partnership program where organizations pay for press releases, sponsored articles, and custom content published on TUN's platform. Tier 1 (Content Placement) from $129, Tier 2 (Content Partnership) custom pricing, Tier 3 (Strategic Integration) custom pricing. Includes AI model sponsorship and newsletter features.
3. Internship Promotion: Companies pay to list internships and entry-level roles on TUN's platform. Listings are distributed through TUN's search engine, TUN AI recommendations, email campaigns to 600K+ subscribers, and promoted on TikTok and Pinterest. Employers can combine internship promotion with branded scholarships.
4. Press Release Distribution: Self-serve press release distribution service. Standard Press Release at $129 (published within 24 hours, indexed on Google, shared with 600K newsletter subscribers), Premium Global Press Release at $199 (adds 15+ language translation and AI database integration), Featured Article at $1,500 (written by TUN editorial team with full distribution).
5. AI Model Sponsorship: Organizations can sponsor TUN's specialized AI models (Financial Aid Navigator, Scholarship Finder, Career Guide). 'Powered by [Your Institution]' branding on the AI tools students use most. Integrated into TUN AI's vectorized databases for relevance-based student matching.
6. Student Discount Marketplace: Brands list student discounts on TUN's platform. TUN AI recommends deals to students actively searching for discounts. Partners include Nike, Adobe, Apple, Samsung, Amazon, Spotify, and hundreds more.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels10 records

Marketing channels9 records

Core offering

TUN operates a free, AI-powered online platform that helps U.S. students find and apply for scholarships, financial aid, college courses, internships, career opportunities, and student discounts aggregated from third-party providers, organizations, and educational institutions. The company also monetizes a separate set of B2B products — Impact Studio, Press Release Distribution, Scholarship Management, Internship Promotion, Research Coverage, and AI Model Sponsorship — sold to employers, universities, and financial institutions seeking reach into the Gen Z student audience.

Product overview

The University Network (TUN) is a multi-sided educational platform serving 13 million monthly students with a unified AI-powered offering. The core product is TUN AI, a higher education assistant launched in 2017 and refined through 200+ iterations, which serves as the intelligent layer connecting students to scholarships, courses, internships, and career guidance using 20+ specialized AI models. The platform operates across multiple product lines: Consumer tools (Scholarship Search, Course Search, Internship Search, Student Discounts, School Profiles, TUN TV, Resources/Guides, and POWER Micro-Courses) all powered by or integrated with TUN AI; and B2B services (Impact Studio for branded content partnerships, Press Release Distribution, Research Coverage, Internship Promotion, Custom Partnerships, Scholarship Management Services, and Financial Institution Partnerships) designed for universities, employers, and financial institutions. The platform aggregates content from 200+ universities and organizations while maintaining a DA 63 domain authority and Google News publisher status.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• TUN AI: AI-powered higher education assistant launched in 2017, providing personalized guidance for scholarships, financial aid, courses, careers, and college planning
• TUN Impact Studio
• POWER Micro-Courses
• TUN TV
• TUN Discounts
• TUN Scholarships

Products and services

• TUN AI AI-powered conversational assistant and recommendation engine for students, providing personalized answers and structured guidance across scholarships, financial aid, college courses, internships, careers, and student discounts. Free for students, with B2B AI Model Sponsorship available to financial-institution partners.
• Scholarship Search Aggregated database of scholarships and financial aid opportunities for students, with matching and application guidance, free to U.S. students.
• Course Search Aggregator of college courses from 200+ universities, helping students discover, compare, and plan academic pathways; free to students.
• Internship & Career Search Internship and career opportunity aggregator for students, with employer-promoted listings and career resources; free to students.
• Student Discounts Aggregator of student discounts and brand offers, providing verified promo codes and offers for the U.S. student audience; free to students.
• TUN TV Original video programming on education, careers, scholarships, and student life, distributed as part of TUN's editorial content offering to students.
• Impact Studio Tiered B2B sponsorship product (Tier 1 / Tier 2 / Tier 3) that lets employers, universities, and other organizations feature their scholarships, courses, internships, or discounts prominently on TUN for the Gen Z student audience.
• Press Release Distribution B2B pay-as-you-go press release distribution service that publishes client announcements via TUN's editorial, newsletter, and Google News (DA 63) channels for reach into the student and education market.
• Scholarship Management Services Managed B2B service for organizations that run their own scholarship programs, providing administration, applicant flow, and amplification on the TUN platform.
• Internship Promotion B2B product enabling employers to promote internships and early-career job opportunities to TUN's 13M+ monthly student audience via the platform's internship and career channels.
• Research Coverage B2B editorial coverage and distribution service for institutional and organizational research, leveraging TUN's editorial, newsletter, and Google News channels.
• AI Model Sponsorship B2B AI-sponsorship offering sold primarily to financial institutions, providing brand presence and integration within TUN AI model responses to student queries.
• Custom Partnerships (Multi-Year) B2B multi-year subscription partnerships offering bespoke combinations of Impact Studio placement, Press Release Distribution, Research Coverage, content collaboration, and AI Model Sponsorship for employer and institutional partners.

Quantifiable outcome

• Helping 13 million students every month
• +5 more outcomes

Named customers2 records

Segments6 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability5 records

Feature3 records

Partnerships

40 partnerships are on record, tiered flagship, core and minor.

• CFP Board Center for Financial PlanningflagshipGTM or Marketing Partner · 1 January 2016The CFP Board's Center for Financial Planning has built one of the most active scholarship ecosystems in financial services with multiple programs each cycle. They've awarded $3.3M+ since 2016, supporting 990+ students, with $65K in the spring 2026 cycle.
• Golden 1 Credit UnionflagshipGTM or Marketing Partner · 1 January 2013Golden 1 Credit Union has been investing in California students since 2013 as part of their commitment to members and communities. Their scholarship program has grown into one of the most substantial credit union scholarship programs in California, awarding $5M+ since 2013, including $500K in 2025 to 43 students.
• First National BankcoreGTM or Marketing PartnerFirst National Bank sponsors TUN AI's Financial Aid Navigator model. 'Powered by First National Bank' branding appears on the AI tools students use for financial aid guidance.
• TeslacoreGTM or Marketing PartnerTesla lists internships and career opportunities on TUN's platform, reaching 13M+ students monthly through TUN AI recommendations, search, email, and social distribution.
• TikTokcoreGTM or Marketing PartnerTikTok lists internships and career opportunities on TUN's platform, reaching students actively planning their careers through TUN's multi-channel distribution.
• American ExpresscoreGTM or Marketing PartnerAmerican Express lists marketing internships on TUN, reaching students through TUN AI recommendations and TUN's search engine.
• L'OréalcoreGTM or Marketing PartnerL'Oréal lists Quality 12-Month Intern positions on TUN, targeting students through TUN's internship search and AI matching.
• Principal FinancialcoreGTM or Marketing PartnerPrincipal Financial Group lists Investment Ops Co-Op positions on TUN, reaching students through TUN's multi-channel distribution.
• Capital OnecoreGTM or Marketing PartnerCapital One lists career opportunities on TUN, reaching students through TUN's internship and career platform.
• Micron TechnologycoreGTM or Marketing PartnerMicron Technology lists internship opportunities on TUN, reaching students through TUN's career platform.
• Walt Disney CompanycoreGTM or Marketing PartnerDisney lists Visual Effects Designer Intern positions on TUN, reaching students through TUN's internship search engine.
• Google CloudcoreGTM or Marketing PartnerGoogle Cloud lists career opportunities on TUN, reaching students through TUN's career platform.
• AmazoncoreGTM or Marketing PartnerAmazon lists career opportunities on TUN, reaching students through TUN's internship and career platform.
• MetacoreGTM or Marketing PartnerMeta lists career opportunities on TUN, reaching students through TUN's career platform.
• JPMorgan ChasecoreGTM or Marketing PartnerJPMorgan Chase lists career opportunities on TUN, reaching students through TUN's career platform.
• MicrosoftcoreGTM or Marketing PartnerMicrosoft lists internship and career opportunities on TUN with featured spotlight guides, reaching students through TUN's multi-channel distribution.
• Goldman SachscoreGTM or Marketing PartnerGoldman Sachs lists career opportunities on TUN, reaching students through TUN's career platform.
• KPMGcoreGTM or Marketing PartnerKPMG lists Technology Assurance Audit Intern positions on TUN, reaching students through TUN's internship search.
• Yale UniversitycoreOthersYale provides free online courses to TUN's platform, including business strategy, economics, and humanities courses. One of 200+ university partners.
• Harvard UniversitycoreOthersHarvard provides free online courses to TUN's platform through HarvardX. One of 200+ university partners.
• Stanford UniversitycoreOthersStanford provides free online courses to TUN's platform. One of 200+ university partners.
• MITcoreOthersMIT provides free online courses to TUN's platform through MITx. One of 200+ university partners.
• University of PennsylvaniacoreOthersUPenn provides free online courses to TUN's platform through Wharton and other schools. One of 200+ university partners.
• Princeton UniversitycoreOthersPrinceton provides free online courses to TUN's platform. One of 200+ university partners.
• University of ChicagocoreOthersUChicago provides free online courses to TUN's platform. One of 200+ university partners.
• University of MichigancoreOthersUniversity of Michigan provides free online courses to TUN's platform. One of 200+ university partners.
• Columbia UniversitycoreOthersColumbia University provides free online courses to TUN's platform. One of 200+ university partners.
• Johns Hopkins UniversitycoreOthersJohns Hopkins University provides free online courses to TUN's platform, including health and medical courses. One of 200+ university partners.
• Duke UniversitycoreOthersDuke University provides free online courses to TUN's platform. One of 200+ university partners.
• Rice UniversitycoreOthersRice University provides free online courses to TUN's platform. One of 200+ university partners.
• GooglecoreOthersGoogle provides free online courses to TUN's platform through Google and Google Cloud. One of 200+ organization partners.
• IBMcoreOthersIBM provides free online courses to TUN's platform, including data science and AI courses. One of 200+ organization partners.
• MicrosoftcoreOthersMicrosoft provides free online courses to TUN's platform. One of 200+ organization partners.
• NikecoreGTM or Marketing PartnerNike offers student discounts of up to 40% off on select items, plus exclusive access for students. Featured brand on TUN's student discount marketplace.
• AdobecoreGTM or Marketing PartnerAdobe offers Creative Cloud at 60% off for students. Featured brand on TUN's student discount marketplace.
• ApplecoreGTM or Marketing PartnerApple offers education pricing on Mac, iPad, and accessories for students. Featured brand on TUN's student discount marketplace.
• SamsungcoreGTM or Marketing PartnerSamsung offers up to 30% off phones, laptops, and tablets for students through their Education Program. Featured on TUN's student discount marketplace.
• AmazoncoreGTM or Marketing PartnerAmazon offers Prime Student with free 6-month trial, then 50% off Prime membership. Featured on TUN's student discount marketplace.
• SpotifycoreGTM or Marketing PartnerSpotify offers Premium at 50% off for students, plus Hulu and Showtime bundled. Featured on TUN's student discount marketplace.
• CMI Marketing, Inc. d/b/a CafeMediaminorGTM or Marketing PartnerCafeMedia is affiliated with TUN for placing advertising on the site. CafeMedia collects and uses certain data for advertising purposes. TUN states they do not sell student data.

Scale indicators10 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Broad incumbents

• College Board (BigFuture): College Board operates BigFuture, a college and scholarship planning portal used by millions of US high-school students — directly comparable to TUN's college planning, scholarship search, and admissions guidance offerings, but with the institutional scale of the SAT administrator.
• Chegg: Chegg is a publicly traded student-services platform that started in textbook rental and has expanded into scholarships, tutoring, internships, and AI study tools — broadly comparable to TUN's student tools portfolio and a comparable aggregator of student services including scholarships and careers.

Direct peers

• Fastweb: Fastweb is one of the largest US scholarship and financial-aid search engines, directly competing with TUN's Scholarship Search and TUN AI matching on the same high-school and college-student use case.
• Scholarships.com: Scholarships.com is a long-standing scholarship search and college-prep platform that targets the same prospective-student audience as TUN with comparable free scholarship-matching and college-resources tools.
• Going Merry: Going Merry is a scholarship search and application platform that helps students find and apply for scholarships with AI-assisted matching — overlaps with TUN's scholarship matching and Scholarship Management Services on both student-facing discovery and partner-managed programs.
• Scholly: Scholly is a scholarship search app originally built on a Shark Tank launch and now offers AI-driven scholarship matching to students — closely comparable to TUN's TUN AI scholarship matching capability and target user.
• Niche: Niche is a college search, K–12 school, and student-review platform with millions of monthly users, overlapping with TUN's school profiles, college planning, and student resource content, and competing for the same organic student traffic.
• Appily: Appily is a college search and admissions guidance platform that packages scholarships, college profiles, and admissions resources — closely comparable to TUN's combination of School Profiles, Scholarships, Resources & Guides, and TUN AI college planning.

Emerging players

• Handshake: Handshake is a career platform connecting college students with employers and internships — directly comparable to TUN's Internship & Career Search product and the internship promotion service for employers, but specialized for college students rather than high-school students.

Regional players

• Coursera: Coursera aggregates free and paid online courses from universities worldwide and overlaps with TUN's Course Search offering and partnerships with the same universities (Harvard, MIT, Yale, Stanford); Coursera monetizes via B2C/B2B while TUN offers the same content free to students.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/TUNdiscounts
• Facebookfacebook.com/TUNdiscounts
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/tun-inc-
• TikToktiktok.com/@tunforstudents
• Pinterestpinterest.com/tundiscounts

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about The University Network