Leading education agent aggregator Adventus.io has taken an axe to its sub-agent network. In January 2025, the company’s website stated that it had ‘8000+’ agents in its network. By May 2025, that number had dropped to ‘1800+’ – down by 6,200 or a whopping 77.5 percent.
The sudden decrease is a significant departure from the company’s approach to its sub-agent network since at least mid-2020. When Adventus.io launched in June 2020, it was working with around 500 agent ‘partners’, according to one of its founders. Over the following three years it grew its agent/partner network very aggressively, and by May 2023 the website reported ‘8000+ recruiters’. Between that time and early 2025 the number remained stable at ‘8,000+’.
Adventus.io – May 2025The pecking order…
The huge decrease in the reported number of sub-agents also dramatically changes where Adventus.io sits in the agent aggregator pecking order when it comes to size of their respective sub-agent networks, as shown by the chart below. From third position in January 2025, it is now well back in the field (note: the sub-agent networks for the other aggregators were accurate as at January 2025).
Chart 2Implications…
The precipitous drop in the number of sub-agents stated on the Adventus.io website raises several questions:
- What is the reason for the significant decrease?
- Presumably the rapid growth to 8000 agents reflected a view that a large number of agents was required to support Adventus’s business model. What impact will the decrease, and now a reliance on a much smaller number of agents, have on Adventus’ business? Does the decrease reflect a more fundamental shift or pivot in strategy?
- How was the decrease communicated to the approximately 6,200 former agent partners who were shed from the network? What was the reaction from those agents?
AgentBee put those questions to Adventus, but did not receive a response.
Downsizing – it’s a thing
Generally the trend with most education agent aggregators is to steadily increase their agent network over time, but Adventus is not the only aggregator to throw the gear stick into reverse on its sub-agent network and step on the gas. Between July 2023 and January 2024, the number of ‘Recruitment Partners’ (i.e. sub-agents) reported by ApplyBoard dropped from ‘10,000+’ to ‘6,500+’ (See ApplyBoard cuts 3,500 ‘Recruitment Partners’). Similarly, between January and June 2023:
- the Shorelight website appeared to report a decrease from 7,000 to 3,000 sub-agents (down 57%), and
- the KC Overseas website reported a decrease from 9,000 to 3,000 sub-agents (down 66%). (See ‘Ups and Downs in Aggregator Sub-agent Networks’)
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