Educational Loan Provider MPOWER Financing Raises $100 Mn Equity Investment

Fintech venture and global provider of education loans MPOWER Financing today announced that it has raised an equity investment of $100 Mn.

The new funding is in addition to the $30 Mn MPOWER raised earlier this year from Tilden Park Capital Management, which also participated in the current round, and ETS Strategic Capital on behalf of ETS. Other investors in the current round include King Street Capital Management, Drakes Landing Associates, and Pennington Alternative Income Management.

The funding will be deployed to facilitate loan offerings for the increased number of students wishing to study in North America.

Founded in 2014 by Emmanuel (Manu) Smadja, MPOWER Financing  provides educational loans to high-promise students from India and other countries. MPOWER additionally provides students with academic, financial and career guidance services too.

“We’re delighted to be working with experienced investors who share our vision of empowering the brightest students from around the world,” said Smadja, chief executive officer of MPOWER Financing. “The new funds will be used to directly support students, automate and scale our operations, and to grow our team in Bengaluru. We look forward to supporting an even greater number of qualified students around the globe as they study in the U.S. and Canada,”

The Washington D.C headquartered company claims to work with over 350 top universities across the U.S. and Canada to provide financing to students from over 200 countries. MPOWER counts Bengaluru and New York-based Zephyr Peacock, which helped establish MPOWER’s Bengaluru office and expand its presence in India, as one of its early investors. The team is additionally backed by Breega, Potencia Ventures, Goal Solutions, Gray Matters Capital, Cometa, AI8, DreamIt, 1776, Village Capital, Fresco, K Street, and University Ventures.

Currently, the market only has a few participants in the student lending sector. For instance, Mumbai-based education-focussed fintech startup Eduvanz recently raised $10 Mn in debt funding from multiple financial institutions including InCred Financial Services, Vivriti Capital, and Northern Arc Capital. In November 2020, Eduvanz even acquired edtech startup Klarity, an online one-on-one networking and mentoring platform.

Other startups in the sector include Bengaluru-based Leap Finance, which is solely focused on higher education abroad.  Leap Finance is backed by Sequoia Capital.