Mos, with a $4 million seed round, is a single application platform for federal and state financial aid allowing students in the US to apply to every state grant and scholarship for which they qualify.
Students who use Mos spend less time applying for financial aid and end up with more money for college. On average, Mos finds each student $15,000 in college financial per year, but our application only takes 20 minutes.
Founded by Tunisian activist Amira Yahyaoui, Mos is helping students to apply for financial aid and maximize all their opportunities and curb student debt. The platform has raised funding from Uber co-founder Garrett Camp, his startup studio Expa, Kleiner Perkins chairman John Doerr, Base Ventures, Sweet Capital and others in a move to decrease American student debt, which stood at nearly $1.6 trillion in 2018.
Mos promises to always find students every dollar they qualify for in federal and state aid, support students and parents through the application process, advocate for students in their financial aid offices and simplify the scholarship application process.
Amira Yayahoui
According to activist and entrepreneur Amira Yayahoui, Mos set out to automate the confusing financial aid process and find students the aid they needed for the schools of their dreams in a market where 83 percent of families cannot afford college and though the government created hundreds of federal and state financial aid programs for students, it’s not easy to figure out which one works for them.
“There is $135B+ in financial aid made available to students in the US annually, but a good chunk of the aid never gets used. Why? Because applying to financial aid sucks,” says Mos. “Most of us don’t know of all the programs that exist or the eligibility requirements for each. Identifying and applying to all the programs that a student qualifies for can take weeks of research and filling out forms. Many students just fill out FAFSA®, which doesn’t doesn’t include a whopping $12B in state gift and work aid.”
The team says it looked long and hard at all the federal and state financial aid programs across the country–those based on financial need, academic merit, residency, field of study, family background, and more–and what it for a student to apply successfully. Then, it built a single application that automatically applies students to all the programs for which they qualify.
The firm says it finds an average of $15,000 in financial aid per student per year.
