Study-abroad and global student mobility platform Leverage Edu is in early-stage talks with global private equity firms to raise approximately ₹500 crore ($60 million) in pre-initial public offering (pre-IPO) funding. The planned capital raise comes as the New Delhi- and Noida-headquartered company targets ₹600 crore in consolidated operating revenue for FY27, building on an operational turnaround that saw its top line surge past ₹370 crore in fiscal 2026 alongside positive operational EBITDA.
The pre-IPO talks form a preparatory bridge for Leverage Edu’s planned ₹2,000 crore to ₹3,000 crore ($240–360 million) public listing, expected to hit Indian stock exchanges over the next 12 to 18 months. Having transitioned from a high-burn college admissions counseling portal into a full-stack student mobility platform—encompassing student accommodation, foreign exchange, remittance services, and international education loans—the startup is aiming to position itself as one of the few profitable, IPO-bound consumer internet businesses emerging from India’s recalibrated post-pandemic edtech landscape.
Key Takeaways
- Pre-IPO Capital Exploration: Leverage Edu is engaging global private equity funds and sovereign-backed growth investors to raise up to ₹500 crore in primary and secondary capital.
- Aggressive FY27 Top-Line Target: Management has set a revenue target of ₹600 crore for fiscal year 2027, representing an estimated 60% expansion over its FY26 performance.
- Turnaround to Operational Profitability: The company reported an operating revenue run-rate of approximately ₹372 crore to ₹375 crore in FY26—a 112% year-on-year surge from ₹173 crore in FY25—while generating ₹9.5 crore in positive EBITDA.
- Listing Timeline and Valuation Ambition: Preparations are underway for a ₹2,000–3,000 crore domestic public listing, with the company aiming for a market valuation above ₹7,500 crore ($900 million).
- Geographic and Fintech Diversification: Growth is increasingly underpinned by Fly Finance (international remittances and education financing) and geographic expansion outside India, including recent entries into Southeast Asia, Africa, and South America via its acquisition of Brazil-based Mundus.
- Strengthened Corporate Governance: The startup recently appointed former KPMG partner and international standard-setter Prabhakar Kalavacherla as Independent Director and Chair of its Audit Committee to align reporting standards with public market expectations.
LEVERAGE EDU: REVENUE & OPERATIONAL TRAJECTORY (FY25–FY27E)
FY25 (Actual)
┌─────────────────────────────────┐
│ Revenue: ₹173 Cr │
│ Operating Loss: ₹106 Cr │ ──► High cash burn; UK visa tightening headwinds
└─────────────────────────────────┘
FY26 (Reported Milestone)
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Revenue: ~₹372–375 Cr (+112% YoY) │
│ EBITDA: +₹9.5 Cr (EBITDA Positive) │ ──► Fly Finance scaling;
│ Users: 175,000+ active platform students │ Nigeria & regional hubs
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
FY27 (Target / Pre-IPO Projection)
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Target Revenue: ₹600 Cr (~60% YoY Expansion) │
│ Target Pre-IPO Round: ₹500 Cr Private Equity Infusion │
│ Target Public Offering: ₹2,000–3,000 Cr Listing (Target Val: >₹7,500 Cr) │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
The Mechanism of Growth: Moving Beyond Single-Country Admissions
Founded in 2017 by Akshay Chaturvedi and later co-founded with Digvijay Gangeja, Leverage Edu initially operated as an admissions advisory marketplace linking Indian university applicants with mentors abroad. However, pure-play student recruitment agencies suffer from acute structural limitations: revenue is largely contingent on seasonal intake cycles (fall and spring semesters), while customer acquisition costs (CAC) escalate rapidly across search engines and social platforms.
To build an investable public-market equity story, Leverage Edu systematically diversified its revenue architecture across three primary verticals:
1. Full-Funnel Student Fintech (Fly Finance)
Admissions commissions from global universities carry finite margins, but financing the international education journey represents an annuity-like revenue stream. Through its cross-border financial services arm, Fly Finance, the company facilitates:
- International student education loans via partnerships with leading private banks and non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) in India and global credit funds.
- Cross-border tuition fee remittances under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS).
- Multi-currency student debit cards, overseas bank account setups, and international health insurance.
Fintech monetization now contributes a substantial share of group gross margins, allowing the platform to extract higher lifetime customer value (LTV) from every student admitted abroad.
2. Geographic De-risking via Emerging Markets
During 2023 and 2024, tighter visa policies, dependent visa bans, and international student caps introduced across Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia severely disrupted Indian study-abroad consultants who were over-indexed on those three corridors.
Leverage Edu mitigated this regulatory exposure by expanding into secondary origin markets. The company established operational centers across Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana to capture outward African student mobility directed toward European and American universities.
In July 2026, the company deepened this multi-origin strategy by acquiring Mundus Agency, a student recruitment agency based in Brazil, providing immediate operational access to South America’s outward student market, which routes over 90,000 students overseas annually.
3. AI-Driven Matching Engine (LE AI)
Earlier in 2026, Leverage Edu rolled out its proprietary AI platform, LE AI, at tech industry summits to automate early-stage profile evaluation, course recommendations, and document drafting. Automating standardized customer service workflows allowed the company to double its candidate processing volume without expanding its physical counselor headcount proportionally, providing the operational leverage that drove the shift to EBITDA profitability in FY26.
Cap Table Structure and the Pre-IPO Strategy
Leverage Edu has raised approximately $65 million to $74 million across multiple equity and venture-debt rounds. Its institutional cap table includes prominent venture capital funds, institutional investors, and strategic entities:
| Shareholder Category / Major Investor | Strategic Role & Investment Heritage |
| Blume Ventures | Early institutional backer; anchored seed and Series A rounds. |
| ETS Global (Educational Testing Service) | Strategic investor; owner of the TOEFL and GRE examination franchises. |
| Kaizenvest & DSG Consumer Partners | Education-focused venture capital funds backing consumer scale. |
| Avendus Capital & BlackSoil | Structured credit, venture debt, and growth financing partners. |
| Aditum Investment Management | Middle East-based growth fund leading international expansion capital. |
| Promoters & Founders (Chaturvedi & Gangeja) | Retain approximately 8.9% direct equity ownership (net worth ~₹254 Cr). |
| Institutional Funds / Enterprises / Angels | Institutional funds hold ~54.0%, enterprises ~10.5%, angels ~7.6%. |
CURRENT ESTIMATED SHAREHOLDING DISTRIBUTION (PRE-IPO)
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ │
│ INSTITUTIONAL VENTURE FUNDS (54.03%) FOUNDERS (8.89%)│
│ ██████████████████████████████████████████████████ ████████ │
│ │
│ ENTERPRISES & STRATEGICS (10.49%) ANGEL INVESTORS (7.60%) │
│ ██████████ ███████ │
│ │
│ OTHER MINORITY / ESOP POOL (~19.0%) │
│ █████████████████ │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Why Seek ₹500 Cr in Pre-IPO Capital?
A ₹500 crore pre-IPO round serves several strategic and corporate balance-sheet functions:
- Secondary Liquidity for Early Angels: Early angel investors and seed-stage funds who entered between 2017 and 2019 require liquidity windows ahead of formal public market lock-in mandates. A pre-IPO round allows institutional private equity buyers to clean up the cap table.
- Growth Capital for M&A: Following the Mundus acquisition in Latin America, Leverage Edu is actively assessing programmatic acquisition targets in continental Europe and East Asia to secure university partnership tie-ups.
- Establishing a Valuation Floor: By securing a marquee global private equity sponsor at a private valuation benchmark between ₹2,000 crore and ₹2,500 crore ($240–300 million), the startup establishes an institutional price anchor before retail and domestic mutual fund book-building commences for the mainboard IPO.
Governance Hardening: Preparing for Public Scrutiny
Indian capital market regulator SEBI has maintained a stringent posture toward tech startups seeking public listings, requiring clear visibility on corporate governance, independent oversight, and auditable unit economics.
Recognizing the regulatory scrutiny that derailed earlier consumer internet offerings, Leverage Edu made a major governance appointment in September 2026, naming Prabhakar Kalavacherla as Independent Director and Chair of its Audit Committee.
Kalavacherla brings considerable regulatory and institutional weight:
- Former partner at audit giant KPMG, leading its US-GAAP and IFRS global advisory practices.
- Former member of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) in London.
- Former member of the US Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB).
Appointing a veteran international standard-setter signals to institutional asset managers that the startup is institutionalizing internal audit controls, related-party transaction safeguards, and statutory financial reporting well in advance of filing its Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP).
Industry Headwinds and Competitive Landscape
Despite its rapid top-line trajectory, Leverage Edu must navigate several external risks and structural headwinds:
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ COMPETITIVE ECOSYSTEM BENCHMARKS │
├──────────────────┬──────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────┤
│ COMPETITOR │ CAPITAL RAISED │ CORE ADVANTAGE │
├──────────────────┼──────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┤
│ Leverage Edu │ ~$65–74M │ Multi-market sourcing (India, │
│ │ (Series D) │ Africa, LATAM) + Fly Finance │
├──────────────────┼──────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┤
│ Leap Scholar │ >$150M │ Dominant consumer mindshare in │
│ (Leap Finance) │ (Owl, Apis) │ Tier-2/3 Indian credit origin │
├──────────────────┼──────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┤
│ ApplyBoard │ >$450M │ Scaled Canadian enterprise B2B │
│ │ (Fidelity, Caisse│ recruiter aggregation platform │
├──────────────────┼──────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┤
│ upGrad Abroad │ Corporate Parent │ Massive domestic upskilling base │
│ │ Backed (Ronnie S)│ leveraging hybrid degree pathways│
└──────────────────┴──────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────┘
1. Geopolitical and Visa Volatility
The study-abroad sector remains uniquely exposed to sovereign immigration policies. Stricter post-study work visa criteria in the UK, caps on international study permits across Canadian provinces, and elevated visa rejection rates in the US have compressed industry-wide applicant volumes. While geographic diversification into Europe and regional destinations provides a buffer, severe macroeconomic shifts in student destination countries directly impact intake conversions.
2. Margin Competition in Student Lending
Through Fly Finance, Leverage Edu competes against established fintech lenders, specialized non-bank finance companies (such as Avanse, HDFC Credila, and InCred), and direct-to-consumer student platforms like Leap Scholar. As lending partners face stricter risk-weighting norms on unsecured consumer credit from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), originating student loans at attractive commission spreads requires higher credit-scoring discipline.
3. Public Market Multiples for Edtech
Following the high-profile valuation collapses and corporate restructurings across India’s edtech sector over the past three years, domestic institutional investors (DIIs) approach the sector with deep skepticism. While profitable offline-hybrid models like PhysicsWallah have paved a path toward public markets, asset-light digital counseling platforms must prove that their EBITDA margins are sustainable and not merely the result of cyclical pre-IPO cost suppression.
What Happens Next
Over the second half of fiscal year 2027, Leverage Edu’s leadership will focus on finalizing terms for the ₹500 crore pre-IPO financing round.
Key milestones to monitor include:
- Lead Investor Announcement: Naming the lead global private equity fund anchoring the pre-IPO transaction, which will establish the official pre-listing valuation.
- FY27 Audit Validation: Demonstrating that quarterly run-rates are tracking toward the stated ₹600 crore revenue target while sustaining positive EBITDA margins.
- Investment Banking Mandates: Formalizing the syndicate of merchant bankers (domestic and international book running lead managers) tasked with structuring the ₹2,000–3,000 crore primary and secondary public issue.
- Filing the DRHP: Filing draft offer documents with market regulator SEBI, slated for late 2026 or early 2027, marking the formal kickoff of the company’s road to Dalal Street.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much capital is Leverage Edu looking to raise in its pre-IPO round?
Leverage Edu is in advanced discussions with global private equity firms to raise approximately ₹500 crore ($60 million) in a pre-IPO funding round comprising primary capital and secondary share sales.
What are Leverage Edu’s revenue targets for FY26 and FY27?
The company reported an operating revenue run-rate of approximately ₹372 crore to ₹375 crore in FY26 (up 112% year-on-year from ₹173 crore in FY25) along with ₹9.5 crore in positive EBITDA. For fiscal year 2027, management has set a top-line revenue target of ₹600 crore.
What is Fly Finance, and why is it important to Leverage Edu’s business?
Fly Finance is Leverage Edu’s student financial services division. It assists international students with foreign currency exchange, overseas education loans, tuition fee remittances, and international bank accounts. It provides high-margin recurring revenue that diversifies the company away from cyclical university admissions counseling fees.
Who founded Leverage Edu, and who are its primary investors?
Leverage Edu was founded in 2017 by Akshay Chaturvedi and co-founded with Digvijay Gangeja. Its major institutional investors include Blume Ventures, ETS Global, Kaizenvest, DSG Consumer Partners, Avendus Capital, BlackSoil, and Aditum Investment Management.
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