Bengaluru: Leverage Ed-tech Private Limited, which regulates platforms LeverageEdu.com, UniValley.com, Ivy100.com, & virtual fair platform UniConnect, declared the close of its INR 47 Crores (~$6.5Mn) Series A financing openly. The round was led by Tomorrow Capital, who invested 26.5 Cr into the Akshay Chaturvedi-founded & operated business. Existing investors Blume Ventures & DSG Consumer Partners, who continue to be bullish two years after first investing, added 20.5 Cr in this round, half of which had been instilled a couple of quarters ago, with the residing half supported alongside Tomorrow Capital. With this, the company has now raised about INR 60 Crores across 3 rounds.

Leverage Edu has two central parts of its business. First, the company guides students to select the right program, country based on their mentoring workshops, assisting them in applying to universities and colleges across the world via 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 second part of Leverage Edu’s business is on the university side, a 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-&-medium Study Abroad companies across 35 cities in India to make the applying-to-college journey more comfortable by giving them access to Leverage Edu’s proprietary tech and access to its 250+ partner universities from the world over.

Talking about the investment Rohini Prakash, CEO, Tomorrow Capital, said, “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 the Indian student faces. We believe it is inevitable that the next stellar brand in the global cross-border education space will be a home-grown one. 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.”

With a focus on solving for students of different parts of the country, from Delhi & Mumbai to Kainth, Ernakulum, Surat, Gurdaspur & Vijaywada, Leverage Edu Founder & CEO, Akshay Chaturvedi says, “In the fast emerging democratised-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!”

Akshay added that “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”.

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