[Funding alert] Leverage Edu raises Rs 47 Cr investment led by Tomorrow Capital and others

Leverage Edu has raised Rs 47 crore ($6.5 million) Series A funding led by TTomorrow Capital,who invested Rs 26.5 Crore. Existing investors Blume Ventures and DSG Consumer Partners pumped in the additional Rs 20.5 crore. A statement shared by the company said half of the Rs 20.5 crore had been infused couple of quarters ago, with the remaining half invested alongside Tomorrow Capital. With this, the company has now raised about Rs 60 Crores across three rounds.

Akshay Chaturvedi, Founder and CEO, Leverage Edu stated, “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”. 

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

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 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."

She added, "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.”

The first part of Leverage Edu business counsels 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 second part of Leverage Edu’s business is on the university side, a SaaS-enabled platform called Univalley.com, which helps Universities find 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 250+ partner universities from world over. 

Akshay added, “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!”

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.

“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 the last four years. So, 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 Akshay.