Crimson Education, a Kiwi EdTech company, has raised $61 million (NZ$67 million) in a Series D round from investors, valuing the company at around $1 billion. The round was led by New Zealand venture capital firm Movac, with participation from existing backers HEAL Partners, Icehouse Ventures, US News, and HighSage Ventures, as well as US fund Five Sigma.
The raise was previously reported in July, but the size of the round was not disclosed.
Founded in 2013 by Jamie Beaton, Sharndre Kushor, and Fangzhou Jiang, Crimson Education offers college admissions consulting and tutoring, especially targeting elite US Ivy League universities such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and MIT, as well as Oxford and Cambridge in the UK. It has 22 offices across five continents and acquired several edtech rivals over the past decade, including NumberWorks’nWords, Revision Village, and Collegewise. The company typically works with its students for several years to develop a custom plan for everything from extracurricular activities to academic acceleration and prepare for the college admissions process.
Speaking on the fundraising, Jamie Beaton, co-founder and CEO of Crimson Education, said:
The funds will be used to expand Crimson’s offerings. We want to continue to grow our role as the critical partner in a child’s education, from academic tutoring to high school, extracurricular development, and university candidacy building to providing access to leading careers, informative research, and leadership opportunities throughout the different phases of their journey.
Five years ago, the company launched Crimson Global Academy (CGA), an internationally certified online school that offers various certifications, including International GSCEs, British International A Levels, the US Diploma Program, and Advanced Placement (AP). CGA has 1,700 students from 60 nations and around 200 teachers.
Movac partners Mark Vivian and Martin Dalgleish from HEAL joined the Crimson board following Series D.
HEAL partner Martin Dalgleish said they’d seen “tremendous growth and maturation” in Crimson since they first invested in June 2021.
He added:
With the success of CGA, Crimson has shown that the market size is even more significant than we’d initially assumed. We’re excited for Crimson to become the global platform of choice for ambitious students to achieve their goals.
The Auckland scaleup’s cap table also includes former New Zealand and Australian Prime Ministers Sir John Key and Kevin Rudd, K1W1, and Tiger Global, as well as its creator, the late Julian Robertson, who invested in Crimson in 2016 in an A$39.5 million round at a valuation of $205 million.
