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Huron Consulting Group, one of the most respected names in higher education strategy, just published its inaugural RISE 40 report. The list, formally titled Rearchitecting the Integrated Student Experience, curates 40 EdTech companies Huron believes are meaningfully reshaping how universities recruit, retain, and prepare students for life after graduation.
CareerOS made the list.
We're proud of that. But more than the recognition itself, we want to share why this moment matters — for our team, for our university and company partners, and for the students we're ultimately building for.
The RISE 40 isn't a rankings list, and it isn't pay-to-play. Huron analyzed more than 100 companies across the student lifecycle, evaluated them against criteria including institutional relevance, real-world operating fit, and evidence of sustained adoption, and selected 40. The report was built to help university leaders, presidents, provosts, enrollment officers, career services deans, understand what categories of EdTech even exist before they start taking vendor meetings.
That framing matters. Being included means university decision-makers will encounter CareerOS as a credible option during their evaluation process, not just during a sales pitch.
CareerOS appears in the Career Readiness category, under Career Readiness Platforms — described as a solution that "integrates career advising, employer relations, and outcomes tracking into a single platform."
That's exactly what we've been building. The fact that this description landed with an independent research team, informed by conversations with university leaders across the country, tells us the value proposition is resonating beyond our own walls.
Huron's report is candid about the state of the EdTech market: it's crowded in some areas, fragmented in others, and still maturing overall. The career readiness category is described as "smaller, but more established", fewer companies, but ones that are more deeply embedded in institutions and focused on product evolution rather than rapid new entry.
The cohort as a whole has raised nearly $430 million in disclosed funding. Several companies report annual recurring revenue exceeding $50 million with year-over-year growth above 38%. These are the players CareerOS is being evaluated alongside.
We're 2.5 years old. That context isn't lost on us.
This recognition is a direct result of what our university partners have helped us build: real workflows, real data, real outcomes that hold up under scrutiny. Huron's methodology explicitly prioritized evidence of institutional adoption and measurable impact over novelty. The fact that CareerOS made the cut on those terms is the validation that means the most.
It's also a reminder of why integration matters. The report notes that institutions are navigating real trade-offs between point solutions and core enterprise systems, and that context, integration, and judgment matter as much as innovation itself. A platform that connects career advising, employer relations, and outcomes in one place isn't just a feature decision. It's a strategic one.
The RISE 40 is, as Huron puts it, an invitation to dialogue, not a conclusion. We're in the conversation. Now the work is to keep earning our place in it: deepening our university partnerships, continuing to build a product that performs inside the complexity of real institutions, and staying focused on the students whose career trajectories we're here to improve.
We're grateful to Huron for the recognition and to every university partner who has trusted us with their students. This is still just the beginning.
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