Posted by San Francisco, USA-Bangalore, India: Overseas education startup Leap has raised $75 million (Rs. 585 crore) in Series D funding led by Owl Ventures.
New investors Steadview Capital and Paramark Ventures along with existing investors Jungle Ventures and Sequoia Capital India participated in this round. The startup has now raised over $150 million in equity since it was founded in 2019.
Leap, which runs LeapScholar, LeapFinance, and Yocket, is a full-stack international student mobility platform. It runs one of the largest online communities of study abroad aspirants with over two million students. Centred around the community, Leap offers a suite of products to cover an international student’s lifecycle.
These include international test prep like IELTS, TOEFL, SAT, etc., admissions and visa counselling as well as financial offerings like international student loans, international bank accounts, credit cards, and money remittance services.
This holistic end-to-end approach to solving every pain point of an international student has enabled Leap to help over 175,000 students in their study abroad journey in the past 12 months.
“With the backing of marquee global investors, we continue to march forward on our mission to democratize access to quality global education and make these dreams a reality,” said Vaibhav Singh, Co-Founder of Leap.
“Owl is thrilled to be working with Leap to create a transformative company that will impact generations of students around the world in their pursuit to access and afford high-quality international education opportunities,” said Amit Patel, MD – Owl Ventures.
In recent months, Leap has undertaken several new growth initiatives. In April, it partnered with Colorado State University, USA bringing the university’s prestigious MCIS program to Indian students in a unique multi-geography hybrid format, at a much lower cost.
More such innovative offerings are in the pipeline across Leap’s 750+ global university partners. Earlier this year, Leap expanded its presence into the Middle East, to help students in the region in their study abroad pursuits.
“Having built the underlying infrastructure for global student mobility, we are now able to scale rapidly across multiple dimensions,” said Arnav Kumar, Co-founder of Leap.
“We have launched many industry-first products and experiences to make the student journey seamless. Ensuring student success has been our mission and we will continue to deepen our existing offerings and launch newer ones in the months ahead,” added Kumar.
“Steadview Capital is excited to partner with Leap in its journey of building the largest full-stack platform, focused on Indian students looking to pursue an international education,” said Ravi Mehta, Founder and CIO of Steadview Capital.
“Jungle Ventures is proud to triple down on Leap with our third investment in two years since leading their Series B, as they have rapidly grown and become the leading all-in-one platform for emerging Asian students looking to study overseas,” said Yash Sankrityayan, Managing Partner, Jungle Ventures.