ApplyBoard is growing fast – really fast.
On 15 June 2021, ApplyBoard announced that it had raised a further US$300 in venture capital funding, valuing the company at US$3.2 billion.
Keep in mind that the company was only founded in 2015. Since then it has become what those in the venture capital game call a ‘rocket ship’, growing super fast and attracting regular venture capital investment to fuel further growth. In total ApplyBoard has raised over US$475 million in less than six years.
The money was raised in seven funding rounds.
According to ApplyBoard’s website, the most recent round of funding will enable it to “further break down the barriers to international education” by:
- Developing dynamic and innovative new product offerings
- Expanding to even more study abroad destination countries
- Growing our support teams at scale
An ApplyBoard IPO?
Venture capital investing is a risky business and investors expect a healthy return on their money. Investors usually make a number of investments (or ‘bets’) in the hope that one of the companies they give money to will hit it big (i.e. become a unicorn, worth $1 billion plus).
Any company that takes venture capital money has to have an exit strategy. That generally means that the company is grown quickly and then sold to another, bigger, player in the same market who buys it as a strategic acquisition (e.g. Google buying YouTube), or it is listed on the stock market (called an IPO – Initial Public Offering).
Given the amount of venture capital money invested in ApplyBoard, an exit may not be too far away. If the founders opt for a stock market listing then, based on data on similar companies, ApplyBoard is now in the zone. According to Crunchbase, companies with marketplace and transactional models – which is describes ApplyBoard quite well – took on average five rounds of funding (though to Series E) and 7 years to exit. ApplyBoard has been going for 6 years and has had four major rounds of funding.
Become a Aggregator or Master Agent
The ApplyBoard team saw an opportunity and went for it. They have done a great job of building their company quickly and delivering value for their stakeholders, clients and investors.
But you don’t need truck loads of venture capital investment to become an “master agent” (or “aggregator”). You just have to be able to:
- build a network of sub-agents
- work with those sub-agents effectively, and support them well, to generate international student enrollments.
AgentBee provides a simple, end-to-end solution for education agencies seeking to implement a master agent business model.
Source: ApplyBoard, Crunchbase