Study abroad platform Leap is actively exploring acquisitions in the undergraduate and upskilling segments as it adapts to changing global education trends and rising interest in newer courses like digital marketing, design, and AI.
The Peak XV-backed company, which has disbursed over $250 million (Rs 2,100 crore) in non-collateral education loans via partners to more than 5,000 students, is also expanding its offerings to engage users who defer overseas plans.
“We are looking at M&A opportunities right now,” said co-founder Arnav Kumar. “We don’t do a lot of undergrad today… but globally, undergrad is a large market. So something like that, which is a globally specialised undergrad player, would make a lot of sense for us.”
“A lot of students start thinking about study abroad… but say, not this year. They then want to pursue certification and upskilling courses,” he added. “Now we can build that on our own, but if we find something interesting, that would be a good, synergistic domain.”
Leap currently holds about 2.5 percent of the addressable market for Indian students going abroad. “We feel we can easily get to 20-25 percent in the next three to four years,” Kumar said.
Loan-led monetisation; turns Ebitda-positive
Leap turned Ebitda-positive in FY24 and now operates across 21 locations with nine in India and 12 abroad across four verticals: an online student community, a test prep product with 2 million users, a counselling platform, and a financing arm.
In January, Leap raised $65 million in a Series E round (a mix of primary and secondary equity), led by Apis with participation from Owl Ventures, Jungle Ventures, and Peak XV. The company, founded in 2019, has raised over $200 million in equity to date. While valuation was not disclosed, it was reportedly seeking over $1 billion.
Its biggest revenue driver remains education loans, with an average ticket size of $50,000. “We have students whose family income is $5,000, and they start earning $89,000. The average income of our first cohort is $102,000,” Kumar said.
Leap lends through a warehousing model in the US and Indian partners such as Credila, Avanse, and Bank of Baroda. It also earns from value-added services such as accommodation, insurance, and student credit/debit cards.
Growth in new corridors
On the impact of visa and admission policy changes in traditional destinations like the UK, US, and Australia, Kumar said Leap is seeing strong momentum in alternative corridors.
“We are a multi-source to multi-destination platform. Every year, some geography will go up, some will go down,” he said. “Last year we did not have a lot of volume in Germany. This year, Germany is going very successful for us… searches for courses in UAE and Dubai are going up 30-40 percent month over month.”
Leap’s top corridors by volume remain the UK, US, and Canada, but the fastest-growing ones include Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, and the UAE. “Students are very well informed,” he said. “My job is not to do crystal ball gazing. My job is to look at the present very clearly and orient in the way the wind is blowing.”
While STEM remains the dominant category, particularly in the US, demand is rising in areas like design, healthcare, finance, and AI. “Design courses are growing at a pace I didn’t expect. Medical care-related courses also seem to be seeing a lot of demand,” Kumar said. “Germany is very engineering-heavy. Ireland is very internet-for-skills like digital marketing, product design. Finance is evergreen. AI courses are very, very popular right now.”
Leap’s test prep platform has expanded to cover PTE, SAT, and GRE, in addition to IELTS.
The company is also tracking the entry of foreign universities into India. “It’s an opportunity. Whether it grows the pie or substitutes current demand remains to be seen,” he said. “For us, it’s like adding a new vertical. If a student wants to study here, we can help. If they want to upskill or go abroad, we help with that too.”
Reverse flip being explored
An IPO is being actively considered, though timing remains undecided. “We are trying to prepare ourselves for it, but we don’t have a timeline yet,” Kumar said. “It’s not happening in the immediate future. But we are actively thinking about what’s the right time and what are the things that we need to put in place before we get there.”
Leap is also weighing a reverse flip to India from its current San Francisco headquarters. “We are deliberating a bunch of options,” he said. “But too early to say anything specific.”
AI-first approach powering SOPs, visa mocks, and scholarship tools
Leap has built over 20 AI tools for both students and internal counsellors. “Almost 90% of our resources (product, engineering, marketing) are now focused on AI initiatives,” Kumar said. “We want to become an AI-native company in this space. If we don’t build that company, someone else will.”
Its tools include a visa interview simulator used by some students up to 57 times, a financial planner bot, and a counsellor co-pilot. “We have built a co-pilot for our counsellors… it can tell the counsellor what to say now, or where you should match the student,” he said.
Other products include an SOP generator, IELTS speaking simulators, and a scholarship finder. “You answer four questions, upload your LinkedIn profile, and it creates an SOP, which is actually very high quality,” Kumar said.
These are built using LLMs like OpenAI and Google’s, layered with Leap’s proprietary data. “You’ll be able to get to like a six or seven just by doing very good prompt engineering. Beyond that, you need proprietary data,” he said.
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