[Funding] EdTech platform Leverage Edu closes Rs 47 Cr Series A led by Tomorrow Capital

Leverage Edtech Private Limited (Leverage Edu) has announced the close of its INR 47 Crores ($6.5Mn) Series A financing. Tomorrow Capital led the round where it pumped Rs 26.5 Cr into the business. Existing investors Blume Ventures and DSG Consumer Partners also invested alongside Tomorrow Capital. With this, the company has now raised about INR 60 Crores across 3 rounds. Alongside institutional financing, the company also saw investments come in from an angel consortium. Karan Khemka, Vishal Gondal of Goqii, Ash Lilani of Saama Capital, Amrish Rau of Pine Labs, Chaitanya Rathi of Sula Wines, among others put capital on its table.

Founder and CEO, Akshay Chaturvedi, states that the company will use the latest funding to accelerate the company’s strategic expansion into newer markets. It also aims to bring in more product innovation, and deepen their student-first approach. Further, it aims to focus on pedagogy and student-first tools. “Our immediate goal 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. 18 months from now, we want to be among the top study abroad companies in India, both by the number of students and a roof-hitting NPS; because a happy student is what really motivates us every day to do this,” said Chaturvedi.

About Leverage Edu

Leverage Edu has two main parts of its business. First, the company counsels students to select the right program, country based on their mentoring workshops. It helps them apply to universities and colleges across the world via its student platform OneView. Then subsequently, it provides them VAS like education loan, VISA, forex, accommodation options; thus, making it a one-stop-shop for the student.

The second part of Leverage Edu’s business is on the university side. It has a SaaS-enabled platform that 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 250+ partner universities from the world over.

From the leaders

The company aims to focus on solving for students of different parts of the country. 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!”

Talking about the investment Rohini Prakash, CEO, Tomorrow Capital, said, “India is one of the largest global suppliers of international students. Yet, the biggest brands helping students in their admissions come from destination countries like the USA, Canada and Australia. They 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.”