Overseas education company Leap raises Rs 400 cr in Series C funding

The firm said it is seeing an unprecedented demand from students to move abroad this year as international borders open post-Covid.

Leap, one of South Asia’s largest overseas education companies, which runs LeapFinance and LeapScholar, has raised $55 million (Rs 400 crore) in Series C funding led by Owl Ventures.

The round also saw participation from Harvard Management Company, Inc, along with returning investors Jungle Ventures and Sequoia Capital India. The round comes less than 6 months after Leap raised its Series B which was led by Jungle Ventures, bringing the total equity capital raised by the startup to date, over $75 million.

Leap will utilise the new capital infusion for multi-dimensional growth. The company intends to extend its service suite to students across Southeast Asia and MENA (the Middle East and North Africa) regions and enable them to pursue their global education aspirations across more than 20 destination countries.

Further, Leap intends to broaden its product portfolio to offer more innovative solutions to international students. Some of the products in the pipeline include an international student credit card and insurance products. The company is also building a suite of offerings to help international students succeed on campus once they have made the move abroad.

Vaibhav Singh, co-founder of Leap, said the firm has seen an unprecedented demand from students to move abroad this year as international borders open post-Covid.

“Our community-led approach coupled with a comprehensive product suite for all international student needs is truly differentiated. Not surprisingly we have seen explosive growth,” said Singh. “We expect million-plus students from the region to move abroad in the next 12 months. This raise positions us perfectly to capture a lion’s share of that demand.”

Leap is building the infrastructure to enable students to pursue international higher education. It runs a million-member strong community of international study aspirants in South Asia and has helped over 60,000 students in their study abroad journey over the last 18 months. Its product suite caters to the end-to-end needs of the community. These include international test preparation, professional admissions counseling, student loans, international student bank accounts, foreign currency remittance, and international career guidance.

“We are building the rails for global student mobility. Over the past year, we have built the product suite to cover an international students’ lifecycle,” said Arnav Kumar, co-founder of Leap. “We have also put in place a scalable playbook that is replicable across geographies. This shows in our rapid growth across product lines.”

Amit Anand, founding partner of Jungle Ventures, said trust and affordability is the key to unleash the full potential of the Study Abroad sector. “The team at Leap has done a great job in leveraging the advancements in the ed-tech and fintech sectors, to create a predictable, transparent, and best-in-class experience for students looking to pursue overseas education and related financing,” said Anand.

Ashish Agrawal, managing director at Sequoia Capital India, said that over the last 18 months since founding, the Leap team has been agile and has materially expanded their offering across multiple needs of students looking to study abroad, including financing, counselling, and test prep. “The desire for Indian students to study abroad is stronger than ever and we believe that Leap, can become the leading platform enabling these students.”