News & Events

On June 15, the China Canada Angel Alliance (CCAA for short), an angel round investment enterprise managed by Zhongguancun Dahe Capital, the world’s largest online platform for studying abroad, ApplyBoard, which is committed to enabling students all over the world to obtain quality education, announced that it had completed round D financing of 375 million Canadian dollars (about 300 million US dollars). The company is currently valued at 4 billion Canadian dollars (about 3.2 billion US dollars). It took only six years for ApplyBoard to become a $4 billion unicorn since its establishment in 2015.

This round of financing was led by the TIP: Teachers’ Innovation Platform of Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, Canada. TIP focuses on late stage venture investment and growth equity investment for companies developing innovative technologies. The existing investors Fidelity Management&Research Company LLC, BDC, Harmonic, Index Ventures, Garage Capital and Blue Cloud Ventures follow the investment.

This round of financing will help meet the growing demand of international students for studying abroad. ApplyBoard plans to use it to develop more products and services for studying abroad, expand countries for studying abroad, and develop the company’s global talent team.

“Education has the power to change life and bring world peace. ApplyBoard is more committed than ever to helping millions of students who dream of studying abroad.”

Martin Basiri, co-founder and CEO of ApplyBoard, said, “Due to the restrictions on international travel in the past year, the demand for students to study abroad has been affected. This financing can enable us to better help students, cooperative schools and enrollment partners, rebuild industry confidence and enable industry recovery in the post epidemic era.”

Olivia Steedman, senior managing director of the TIP: Teachers’ Innovation Platform of the Ontario Teachers’ Retirement Fund Committee, said, “In the Ontario Teachers’ Retirement Fund Committee, we firmly believe in the value of high-quality education. The ApplyBoard platform simplifies the process of connecting students and schools, and creates more opportunities for the global education market.”

ApplyBoard was founded in 2015 by Martin, Meti and Massi Basiri brothers. As international students, they came to Canada for education from Iran. After seeing and experiencing the challenges in the application process, they decided to establish ApplyBoard, aiming to improve and simplify the process of international students applying for foreign schools.

In the same year, ApplyBoard was selected into the Sino Canada Joint Venture Camp of Zhongguancun Dahe Capital CAMP, and won the angel round investment of the Sino Canada Angel Alliance (CCAA) managed by Zhongguancun Dahe Capital. At that time, there were only four users of ApplyBoard. To date, ApplyBoard has established cooperation with more than 1500 educational institutions, helping more than 200000 students from 125 countries and regions complete their overseas study application trip. It became the first Unicorn enterprise with a valuation growth of more than 200 times that CAMP and CCAA helped and invested.

Wang Tong, founding partner of Zhongguancun Dahe Capital and China Canada Angel Alliance principal, commented: “Applyboard is the first batch of early Canadian projects invested by China Canada Angel Alliance, and Martin, the founder, is a member of CAMP Phase I. As an early angel investor of the project, we have the honor to witness the rapid development of the company and actively participate in the development and expansion of the company in the Chinese market.”

Wang Tong stressed: “China’s innovation has entered a new stage, which requires more and better bottom level innovation and top level innovation. At this time, it needs to be in line with international standards and more global cooperation. Canada has a lot of world leading technologies, and hopes to introduce Canadian scientific and technological innovation into China, combine it with China’s huge market, and generate huge collaborative innovation. This is also the original intention of CAMP.” He emphasized that in the past few years, China Canada Angel Alliance has invited more than 40 Canadian science and technology innovation companies to China through the CAMP project four times. Looking forward to the future, he believed that more CAMP companies would also enter the Chinese market through this platform. At present, a new phase of CAMP has started online.

Picture: In 2015, Martin, co-founder of ApplyBoard, participated in CAMP Phase I Sino Canada Joint Venture CAMP

In the past year, ApplyBoard has achieved rapid growth, expanded school cooperation projects in the United Kingdom, the United States, and more than 1000 employees worldwide. At the same time, ApplyBoard completed round C financing of $100 million and additional financing of $70 million in May and September last year, respectively; Won the title of Canada’s top ten startups in 2020 (ranking third), Deloitte’s top 50 rapid development technology companies in Canada (ranking second), and Deloitte’s top 500 rapid development technology companies (ranking 14th); Selected into CB Insights Global Unicorn Enterprise Map in 2020.

Last year, ApplyBoard also added new products and services, such as ApplyProof, a product used to verify application materials for studying abroad. ApplyProof’s online verification service can help admissions officers, immigration officers and other partners obtain and verify international students’ application documents, such as English test scores, admission notices, etc. ApplyBoard’s mission is to make the world a better place by providing every student with fair and high-quality education opportunities. Adhering to the belief that education is everyone’s basic right, not the privilege of minorities, ApplyBoard has grown into a leader in the study abroad industry in the past six years, and plans to help millions of students complete their study abroad journey in the next few years.