Havana

What Havana does

Havana, operated by Bay Street Technologies Pte. Ltd., is a Singapore-based AI platform that automates student recruitment for higher education institutions. Its core product is a generative AI agent that autonomously calls, texts, and emails prospective students around the clock, handling inquiries, qualification, and follow-up across more than 20 languages. The platform serves universities, colleges, business schools, and nursing programs, with a named customer roster that includes Kaplan, Global University Systems, University Canada West, University of Niagara Falls Canada, Tomorrow University, and Kaplan Singapore.

The underlying technology combines speech synthesis and recognition, natural language understanding, and autonomous conversational agents fine-tuned on millions of recruitment conversations. Havana integrates with the three dominant higher education CRMs, Salesforce, HubSpot, and Slate, positioning the agent as a workflow layer embedded within existing admissions technology stacks rather than a standalone replacement.

The business model is enterprise SaaS with quote-based pricing tied to institutional enrollment volume and contract scope. Reported customer outcomes include engagement of more than 100,000 students, a 10% conversion lift, and over 250 man-days of admissions staff time saved, with a Kaplan Singapore case study referencing $2 million in attributed tuition revenue. Havana was acquired by Cognition, the US-based AI company behind Devin, in April 2026.

Name

Havana

Legal name

Bay Street Technologies Pte. Ltd.

Website

https://tryhavana.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2021

Operating status

Acquired

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Havana is a Singapore-based AI platform that deploys autonomous generative agents to call, text, and email prospective students for universities, colleges, and business schools worldwide.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Higher Education Enrollment Software

NAICS

Software Publishers (513210)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)

akta.pro primary industry

CRM, Marketing Automation & Recruitment Analytics for International Admissions (EDAIACAE)

akta.pro secondary industries

Marketing Automation & Campaign Management CRM (HDAEAFAB), Customer Service/Support CRM & Contact Center Platforms (BPAFAFAK), Customer Engagement & Messaging (Email, SMS, Push, In-App) (BPAFAFAI)

Keywords

• AI student recruitment
• Higher education enrollment
• Conversational AI platform
• Lead qualification automation
• Multilingual outreach

Headquarters

HQ city

Delaware

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

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

Revenue model

1. SaaS Subscription for AI Student Recruitment Platform: Havana operates as a SaaS platform providing AI-powered student recruitment automation to higher education institutions. Institutions pay subscription fees for access to the AI agent that handles student outreach, qualification, and follow-up. Pricing is quote-based, indicating enterprise-level contracts. The platform is offered as a cloud-based service integrated with existing CRM systems.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Havana provides an AI-powered conversational platform that autonomously engages prospective students for higher education institutions. The platform uses voice, text, email, and WhatsApp agents to qualify leads, answer questions, schedule follow-up appointments, and revive dormant CRM leads around the clock in 20+ languages. It integrates with institutional CRM systems such as Salesforce, HubSpot, and Slate to synchronize lead data and book appointments with admissions advisors.

Product overview

Havana offers a unified AI-powered student recruitment platform for higher education institutions, comprising the core Havana AI Student Recruitment Platform and its AI Agent for autonomous 24/7 student engagement. The platform operates as a single integrated system combining multi-channel outreach (voice calls, SMS/text, email, WhatsApp) with intelligent lead qualification and automated CRM synchronization. The platform is designed specifically for higher education enrollment use cases including undergraduate, graduate, MBA, nursing, international, and vocational school recruitment. Key features include multilingual communication in 20+ languages, dorman lead revival campaigns, automated HESI score qualification for nursing programs, and seamless integration with existing CRM systems like Salesforce. The platform also provides educational resources through its blog, including annual industry research reports.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Havana AI Student Recruitment Platform Cloud-based SaaS platform providing AI-powered 24/7 automated student engagement across phone calls, SMS, email, and WhatsApp. Qualifies leads, answers student questions in 20+ languages, evaluates program-specific requirements such as HESI scores for nursing applicants, revives dormant CRM leads, and books appointments with admissions advisors. Built specifically for universities, colleges, business schools, nursing programs, and higher education groups.

Quantifiable outcome

• 10% increase in conversion rates for institutions using the platform
• +6 more outcomes

Named customers6 records

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration4 records

AI capability8 records

Feature6 records

Scale indicators7 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• HubSpot: HubSpot's Marketing Hub and Breeze AI agents offer multi-channel marketing automation and AI-driven lead qualification, and integrate directly with platforms like Slate. As a broad incumbent CRM/marketing platform, it is a substitute option for university recruitment teams evaluating Havana.
• Intercom: Intercom is a broad customer messaging and AI agent platform used across industries including education. It is explicitly named as a comparison page on Havana's site and competes for AI-driven student engagement budgets, though without Havana's higher-ed-specific qualification workflows.
• Salesforce (Education Cloud / Einstein): Salesforce Education Cloud and Einstein AI provide CRM, marketing automation, and AI assistants purpose-built for higher education recruitment and student lifecycle management. Salesforce is both a partner (Havana integrates with it) and a broad incumbent alternative that could natively absorb Havana's workflows.
• EAB (formerly Royall & Company): EAB is a large incumbent services and technology provider to higher education, including enrollment marketing, CRM, and student success platforms. It competes for the same institutional recruitment budgets and is sometimes paired with or substitutes for point solutions like Havana.

Emerging players

• Qualified.com: Qualified is an AI-driven pipeline generation and conversational sales platform with comparable lead qualification and meeting-booking mechanics. While targeted at B2B SaaS rather than higher ed, its technology stack overlaps materially with Havana's qualification-and-routing agent.
• Drift (Salesloft): Drift, now part of Salesloft, is a conversational AI platform for B2B buyer engagement with comparable chat, qualification, and meeting-booking features. It represents an adjacent AI-conversation alternative that institutional buyers may evaluate against Havana.
• Halda: Halda is an emerging AI agent platform for student recruitment and enrollment workflows, explicitly named as a comparison alternative on Havana's website. It targets the same higher-ed buyer with overlapping AI-driven outreach and qualification capabilities.

Direct peers

• Element451: Element451 is a higher-education CRM and student engagement platform that combines marketing automation, AI chatbots, and segmentation for university enrollment teams. It is the most direct competitor to Havana, named on Havana's own alternatives/comparison pages, and serves the same mid-market and enterprise university buyers with overlapping recruitment and nurture use cases.
• Ocelot (AdmitHub): Ocelot is a higher-ed conversational AI and chat platform used by colleges to engage prospective students via web chat and text. It directly competes with Havana's AI-driven student engagement and qualification capabilities in the same university enrollment workflows.
• AdmitHub: AdmitHub builds AI-powered chatbots and messaging tools specifically for college admissions and enrollment, targeting the same prospective-student engagement use case as Havana's conversational agent.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/tryhavana
• Xx.com/nathanwangliao

Compliance3 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors1 record

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 Havana