Siblings Martin and Meti Basiri, who co-founded Apply Board with their brother Massi, are photographed at the University of Waterloo in Ontario on Thursday, May 23, 2019.Tijana Martin/The Globe and Mail
School-application startup ApplyBoard Inc. is continuing its rise as one of the fastest-growing companies in the Waterloo region of the past decade, announcing $70-million in new venture financing on Wednesday.
This comes after ApplyBoard revealed a $100-million growth-financing investment just four months ago, which the company said gave it a value of $2-billion.
Investors in the new financing round include New Jersey education-technology company Educational Testing Service, and European and American venture-capital firms Index Ventures, Blue Cloud Ventures and Harmonic Growth Partners. Its total venture financing is now $242-million.
ApplyBoard was founded in 2015 by three brothers from Iran who came to the Waterloo region to study, and sought to make the postsecondary school application process easier for international students.
The Kitchener, Ont., company has since developed a standardized platform that matches the supply of spaces for international students across more than 1,200 schools in North America and Britain with demand from international students. By letting students apply for many schools at once, the company says its proprietary analytics tool helps find the best match for their credentials.
ApplyBoard will also partner with Educational Testing Services, which administers language-proficiency and graduate-admissions tests, to further simplify school application processes, the companies said in a news release Wednesday.
ApplyBoard’s growth has continued even as many schools have shifted to digital or blended digital-physical coursework during the pandemic, as both students and schools adapt to the new remote reality.
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Josh O’Kane