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Ed-Tech Startup LeverageEdu Raises $6.5 Million In Its Growth Round

The startup helps Indian students gain admission into top global universities.

Students wearing protective masks sit spaced apart during an examination. Photographer: Jerome Favre/EPA/Bloomberg
Students wearing protective masks sit spaced apart during an examination. Photographer: Jerome Favre/EPA/Bloomberg

LeverageEdu, a startup that helps Indian students gain admission into the top global universities, has raised $6.5 million in its growth round of investment as it looks to double down on expansion.

The $100-million early-stage fund Tomorrow Capital led the funding round, the New Delhi-based startup said in a statement on Feb. 18. Existing investors, including Blume Ventures and DSG Consumer Partners, put in $2.8 million, the company said.

With this, the four-year-old startup has raised a total of $8.2 million, or about Rs 60 crore, till now in three rounds. While the company declined to comment on valuation, a person privy to the transaction pegged it at around $20 million.

The funds raised will be used to expand to newer geographies and go deeper into markets, including Australia and Canada, Akshay Chaturvedi, founder and chief executive officer of LeverageEdu, told BloombergQuint in an interview. The company also aims to use the investment to penetrate deeper into the Indian market as it sees increased demand from tier-2 cities, he said.

A part of investment will also go in diversifying its offering such as partnering with foreign banks to offer front-end banking solution to students moving abroad.

Chaturvedi said offering valued added services like banking solutions to students moving abroad is the next logical step as it looks to strengthen its position in the market.

“So far, more than 8,000 students have got admissions abroad through LeverageEdu, with nearly 3,000 students alone in the last one year,” he said.

The opportunity is big, Chaturvedi said, as nearly 7.5 lakh Indian students go abroad for their higher education—second only to China. The market, according to him, is growing at an annualised rate of 40%.

LeverageEdu makes money via two models. In the first, it mentors students to select the right programme and universities, helping them to apply there, and subsequently assisting them in providing value-added services like education loan, visas, foreign exchange and accommodation options. An ideal fee would be around Rs 1-1.5 lakh, Chaturvedi said.

In the second, it charges small universities a fee, and helps them get talent for their programmes.

“India is one of the largest global suppliers of international students and yet the biggest brands helping students in their admissions come from destination countries like U.S., Canada and Australia, who don't understand the unique perspectives and problems that the Indian student faces,” Rohini Prakash, chief executive officer of Tomorrow Capital, told BloombergQuint.

LeverageEdu’s funding comes a day after Zolve, a cross-border digital banking startup for Indians moving abroad, raised $15 million. Zolve was founded by TaxiForSure’s co-founder Raghunandan G.