As the number of students going abroad increases, the startups in this space are growing in number too.
These startups are using technology to provide guidance and counselling to students abroad while also helping them with the application process. Then, there are ed-fintech startups that help students raise funds to pay for education abroad.
India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF) reckons that India is on its way to becoming the edtech capital of the world. And startups that enable students to study overseas are also seeing exponential growth.
“This is a space that has had individual players in it and so many for a long time. It is a disorganised sector and with that is the opportunity to become the trusted advisor and partner to students to help them achieve this goal,” says Priyanka.
“The market is up for grabs. There are thousands of students that go abroad every year, so there is opportunity. In addition to that, the end goal for startups in the space would also be to expand to other emerging markets, and if you look at the number of students that travel from the emerging world to the developed world, there is huge potential in that space in terms of mobility,” she adds.
EduFund, Azent, Collegify, ForeignAdmits, Leverage Edu, Yocket, Talentedge, Leap, AdmitKard, and Edumpus are just a few startups that have entered this space.
“The startups in this space are focused on discoverability. Earlier, students had to rely mainly on just one or two websites, and had to visit each school’s website separately to gather the data. The other option was to go to an individual consultant who would only know about 10-12 schools or programs,” explains Karunn Kandoi, General Manager, ApplyBoard India.
“But now with the tech that has been developed, discoverability has become much easier,” he adds.
ApplyBoard is an AI-powered international student recruitment platform with a presence in 25 countries including China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Nepal, and Bangladesh.
The RedSeer report also expects Indian students’ abroad spending to grow from current annual $28 billion to $80 billion by 2024.
And startups helping these students are also raising significant funding. For instance, Leap raised $55 million late last year while AdmitKard raised $13.27 million in July 2021.
More and more startups in the space are also raising seed rounds. EduFund raised $1 million earlier this year, Leverage Edu, and ForeignAdmits also raised funds late last year.
With borders opening up, Indian students are already gearing up to leave the nest.