Leverage Edu Raises $6.5 Mn Investment From Tomorrow Capital And Others The startup will use the fund to expand its reach in tier III, tier IV, and smaller towns

Leverage Edu has been said to have raised INR 47 crore ($6.5 million) in a Series A funding round led by Tomorrow Capital, which invested INR 26.5 Crore. Existing investors Blume Ventures and DSG Consumer Partners propelled the additional funding of INR 20.5 crore.

Half of the INR 20.5 crore had been infused a couple of quarters ago, with the remaining half invested alongside Tomorrow Capital. With this, the company has now raised about INR 60 crore across three rounds, a report said.

"The latest round of funding will be used to accelerate the company's strategic expansion into newer markets, bring in more product innovation, and deepen our student-first approach with more focus on pedagogy and student-first tools," said Akshay Chaturvedi, founder, and chief executive officer, Leverage Edu, in the report.

The platform helps students match to the right higher education option, with one-touch access to over 2500 personalized mentors and global universities. The company adds it has served over 3000 students this season.

"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 the USA, Canada, and Australia, who don't understand the unique perspectives and problems that Indian students face. We believe it is inevitable that the next stellar brand in the global cross-border education space will be a home-grown one," shared Rohini Prakash, chief executive officer, Tomorrow Capital.

The first part of the company's business model advocates students to select the right program, country based on their mentoring workshops, helping them apply to universities and colleges across the world through its student platform OneView, and then subsequently providing them value-added services like education loan, VISA, forex, accommodation options - making it a one-stop-shop for the student, the report further said.

"We have a great belief in Akshay as a founder - he has a fantastic roadmap for scaling the business and the passion to build a truly global Indian edtech brand - and are excited about working with the Leverage Edu team on this journey," Prakash added.

The second part of its business is on the university side, a software-as-a-service (SaaS)-enabled platform called Univalley.com, which helps Universities find the best-matched talent for their diverse programs. Plus, it also enables over 500 small-and-medium study abroad companies across 35 cities in India, to make the applying-to-college journey easier by giving them access to Leverage Edu's proprietary tech and access to its more than 250 partner universities from world over, the company said in the report.

"In the fast-emerging democratized-opportunities world, one's destiny is not married to where they were born or where they started, but how big can they dream, and where in the world is their talent going to find most respect. It could be culinary arts in Western Europe, or sports management in Sydney, fashion and luxury in Paris, nutrition in Canada - or anything, wherever there is a perfect fit for what a student growing up is best at," Chaturvedi further stated.

Apart from institutional financing, the company also saw investments come in from an angel consortium led by Karan Khemka which includes Partners of the education consulting firm LEK. Leverage Edu also counts prominent angels like Vishal Gondal of Goqii, Ash Lilani of Saama Capital, Amrish Rau of Pine Labs, Chaitanya Rathi of Sula Wines, among others on its cap table, a statement in the report said.

"Our immediate goal from here is very clear. We want to focus on a few things and do them really well. There is also this myth around foreign education being expensive that we've now been busting for the last four years. So, 18 months from now, we want to be among the top study abroad companies in India, both by a number of students and a roof-hitting NPS - because a happy student is why we are all really motivated everyday to do this," Chaturvedi concluded.