DSG Consumer Partners, Blume Ventures lead $1.5 mn round in Leverage Ed-Tech

Leverage Ed-Tech, which owns higher education counselling platform Leverage Edu, has raised $1.5 million in a funding round led by existing investors venture capital firm DSG Consumer Partners and early-stage venture fund Blume Ventures. 

Other investors which participated in the round include Saama Capital founder Ash Lilani and fintech firm PayU CEO Amrish Rau, the company said a statement.

With this round, the Delhi-based startup has so far raised $3 million. It raised $1.1 million in a seed round from DSG Consumer Partners and Blume Ventures in December last year and another $0.31 million from individual investors in 2017 in funding round, as per data available with VCCEdge.

The company will use the funds raised through the latest round for geographical expansion in tier-2 and tier-3 cities in the next few quarters. Currently, it has operations in metros such as Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai.

Founded by Akshay Chaturvedi in 2017, Leverage Ed-Tech, through its education platforms LeverageEdu.com and Univalley.com, provides career counselling services such as personalised mentor-led workshops, portfolio build-up sessions, access to pre-programme internships and online courses, and exclusive scholarship options. The platform uses artificial intelligence to predict what options are best suited for a particular student profile.

It also provides after admission services such as education loans and accommodation options. In September 2019, the company launched Univalley.com, which provides advisory, technological and recruitment solutions to partner universities.  

The company claims that 10 lakh students visit the LeverageEdu.com platform every month to enroll for higher education options. 

“The scale of the overseas education opportunity set is more massive than we initially imagined, and the pace at which the team has executed means that we are happy to see ourselves co-leading a second round with DSG into an early breakout from fund III,” Karthik Reddy, managing partner, Blume Ventures, said.

In September 2019, Blume Ventures invested in another Delhi-based ed-tech startup Classplus, which provides technology services to coaching centers and tutors.

Blume Ventures has so far funded more than 60 companies such as Ola, Grey Orange, Zopper, Mobstac, Carbon Clean Solutions, Mettl, Instamojo and Chillr.

DSG Consumer Partners typically invests in consumer brands and businesses in India and Southeast Asia. Since its inception, it has backed over 45 startups and manages assets worth $200 million.

Earlier this month, Reach Capital, which provides funding to early-stage education startups, invested $11 million in Bengaluru- and San Francisco-based firm Springboard.