Mumbai: Education technology platform Leverage Edu has raised an undisclosed amount of funding in its seed round from a clutch of reputed global executives, Internet entrepreneurs among others.
The round was led by serial entrepreneur Kashyap Deorah who also authored – The Golden Tap – the inside story of hyper-funded Indian startups, and VRL Logistics MD Anand Sankeshwar. Former Babajob CFO Sadashiva NT, Former American Express CFO Arjun Mehta, husband-wife duo UCLA Professor Bhagwan Choudhary and 2Meditate Founder Swati Desai, NYU Stern Director Anindya Ghose, Deepak Jain, Founder of Flexiloans and Satish Koul, VP, Union National Bank Abu Dhabi also participated in this round among others.
The company will be using the funds to strengthen their product and technology platform in areas like artificial intelligence among others. Leverage Edu is also looking to hire new talent as it looks to expand operations.
Started by ISB Alumnus Akshay Chaturvedi and seasoned education professional Rajiv Ganjoo, the New Delhi-based startup uses machine learning to help students match with over 2500+ colleges and 100+ experts, helps them build rich profiles that includes writing research papers/filing patents, and apply with the counsel of experts that best match their background and profile. Akshay is an alumni of Draper after which he had stints in one of India’s leading marketplace, Snapdeal and blue collar job provider, Babajob. Rajiv has worked across multiple senior level roles in the education industry including stints at CL Educate and Veritas Prep.
The 9-member strong company is growing at a significant rate month-on-month as it has managed to on board strong partners in the space with a special focus on tier-2 and 3 cities. Leverage Edu is picking students as early as grade 8 for their career assessment and mentorship programs, with an eye to play across the entire student journey thereafter.
“We believe a full-stack approach is necessary to build solutions that scale, specially in a market as big and as global as ours. We let machine intelligence and a curated marketplace of experts tell students what’s right for them, rather than opting for inexperienced traditional options, many times family members. Our SaaS platform helps the aspiring student work on her applications get on-demand mentoring, access to education loans and forex, living and much more. We are passionate about helping folks build awesome careers, and live through that entire journey with them,” said Akshay Chaturvedi, Founder and CEO, Leverage Edu.
“A large number of young Indians aspire for higher education and a large number of colleges worldwide are looking for these students. Matching them at scale is an unsolved problem. Akshay is the right entrepreneur to connect the two worlds,” said Kashyap Deorah.
Anand Sankeshwar, who runs India’s largest logistics firm VRL Logistics, said, “There has been a lot of activity in the EdTech space, and I have been tracking Leverage Edu for quite some time. Their focus on creating a global business out of India, excellent metrics, and their unique approach to solving education in India is a winner. Most of all, Akshay and Rajiv are terrific people to partner with. Their passion on an everyday basis, focused execution and their vision for bringing large scale change in higher education programmes are things that will help them build a great company here.”
As part of its enterprise business, which configures a growing chunk of the startup’s revenue, it partners with top international and Indian institutes across an interesting array of services unique to the Indian landscape, including helping them build a better ranking.
“Careers are life-altering decisions, and also the most expensive ones. People spend more time and energy on higher education/careers than e-commerce. What we are focused upon is touching the lives of millions of students, and helping them build better careers. We will be on-boarding more enterprise customers and more partners in the next few months, and also build our presence in the Gulf region,” added Rajiv Ganjoo, Co-founder and President, Leverage Edu.
