ApplyBoard Announces C$70M Series C Extension and New Partnership with ETS

Illustration of people building a better future

Have you heard the news? ApplyBoard is excited to announce that we have closed an additional C$70M in Series C extension funding with participation from ETS, Index Ventures, Blue Cloud Ventures, Harmonic, and additional investors. Combined with the C$100M in Series C funding we closed in March 2020, this extension brings ApplyBoard’s total Series C funding to C$170M (US$130M).

This funding will enable us to build a better future for countless students around the world by breaking down the barriers to accessing educational opportunities. And now, we can take that one step further!

We plan to use these funds to fuel our rapid growth by:

  • Investing heavily in our proprietary technology
  • Further developing our school and student services
  • Expanding our destination markets
  • Serving a broader diversity of students and recruitment partners globally

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ApplyBoard and ETS — An Exciting New Partnership

We’re also thrilled to announce an exciting new partnership between ApplyBoard and ETS. ETS is the world’s largest non-profit education testing and assessment organization, as well as the administrator of the TOEFL® English-language proficiency test and GRE® graduate admissions test. ETS’s equity investment in ApplyBoard was executed by ETS Strategic Capital, a new unit of ETS created to grow its business and advance its mission through strategic equity investments, growth partnerships, and acquisitions.

“The equity investment in ApplyBoard reflects ETS’s strategy to embrace new technologies and strategic partnerships that help broaden the global reach in education—both in terms of student countries of origin as well as their destinations for studying,” said Ralph Taylor-Smith, Managing Director of ETS Strategic Capital. “In partnering together with ApplyBoard, we look forward to leveraging ETS’s expertise in assessments to help them further scale their business, bolster their offering, and best serve international students and academic institutions in higher education.”

Martin Basiri, ApplyBoard Co-Founder and CEO, announces ApplyBoard’s C$70M Series C extension funding and exciting new partnership with ETS

A Complete End-to-End Application Experience

ETS and ApplyBoard will work together to provide prospective international students with a complete end-to-end application experience. It will encompass the entire student application journey—from preparing for and taking the TOEFL or GRE to searching for, applying to, and beginning studies at one of ApplyBoard’s 1,200+ partner schools across Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

“At ApplyBoard, we believe that education is a right, not a privilege,” explained Martin Basiri, Co-Founder and CEO of ApplyBoard. “United in our shared belief in the power of education to change the world, ApplyBoard and ETS will leverage this exciting new partnership to transform the entire application experience for prospective international students, breaking down barriers and empowering even more students to gain access to the very best educational opportunities available to them.”

Educating the World

ApplyBoard was founded on the fundamental belief that education is a right, not a privilege. In everything that we do, we put student success first. Together, with our amazing partner schools and recruitment partners, we are on a shared mission to educate the world. That mission has become even more critical during the unprecedented times we have faced together in 2020.

We want to thank our ApplyBoard team members, customers, investors, and business partners for their ongoing support and partnership.

Together, we are educating the world and changing the lives of millions of students globally!

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