Continuing the strong momentum across India’s cross-border student mobility sector, study-abroad platform Leverage Edu is on the verge of closing a fresh ₹200 crore (over $20 million) Series D funding round.
The mixed equity-and-debt injection pegs the startup’s valuation at $300 million, more than doubling its previous $140 million valuation from its Series C round in 2023.
The Deal Architecture: Marrying Equity and Debt
According to internal sources familiar with the matter, the structural documentation for the Series D round is in its final stages, with the deal expected to close imminently.
- The Equity Lead: The equity portion of the primary capital raise is being steered by Dubai-based Aditum Fund.
- The Debt Underwriter: The venture debt component is being anchored by domestic private sector lender IDFC FIRST Bank.
The round brings Leverage Edu’s cumulative funding pipeline to nearly $90 million since its inception in 2017 by founder Akshay Chaturvedi. Prior notable backers include language testing giant ETS, Blume Ventures, and DSG Consumer Partners.
Turning the Corner: FY26 Financial Turnaround
The $300 million valuation surge is strongly backed by an overhaul of the platform’s financial metrics over the last fiscal year. While the company posted a net loss of ₹106 crore on a revenue of ₹173 crore in FY25, its newly reported FY26 performance paints a fundamentally different picture:
- Topline Surge: Net operating revenue jumped 112% year-on-year to ₹375 crore in FY26.
- Profitability Achieved: The startup turned EBITDA-positive and operationally profitable for the full year, marking an ₹85 crore swing in its bottom line alongside positive free cash flow.
- Cost Efficiency: While total scale doubled, marketing outlays and personnel costs rose by only 50%, while corporate overheads remained nearly flat with under 10% growth.
The improvement stems from Leverage Edu’s deliberate evolution from a simple admissions consultancy into a full-stack “talent mobility” network. The company successfully reduced its direct reliance on student placement fees from 90% in FY24 to roughly 67% in FY26 by building out higher-margin financial services, international remittances (processing over ₹2,000 crore in transactions), and student accommodation logistics.
Allocating the Capital Runway
The fresh $20 million runway will be deployed directly across three strategic focus areas:
- Expanding Source Geographies: While India remains its dominant market, the startup is aggressively scaling up its international student sourcing footprints across Southeast Asia and Africa (including operational pipelines in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, and Vietnam) to hedge against shifting domestic corridors.
- AI-Led Counseling Upgrades: Funding will accelerate the deployment of the company’s proprietary “LE AI” predictive counseling and automated visa documentation protocols.
- Workforce Mobility: Scaling up its Leverage Careers vertical, which targets international job placement and compliance processing for healthcare and teaching professionals looking to relocate to Western economies.