Halp, a Toronto-based international college admissions coaching platform, recently announced that it has raised $4 million in seed round led by Lerer Hippeau and Serena Ventures.
The round also witnessed participation from N49P, Shed Capital, Gambit Partners, and angels including Sam Blyth, Drew Stevens, Merrick Read, Kaiz Alarakyia, Kyle Doner, and Brandon Swartz.
The company intends to use the current funding to accelerate growth and expand operations. It has also launched in India with the hopes to reach more middle class students in the near future.
Co-founded in 2020 by Matthew McLellan, Marc Fielding, and Justin Mills, Halp is a tech-enabled admissions coaching platform which helps international students get into and afford college. The company aims to become the platform of choice that will bundle coaching, banking, learning, and job placement to support learners around the world in achieving goals throughout their lives.
Halp combines technology with live 1:1 coaching to bring students personal, program-specific coaching in a way that gets results and is affordable. It helps with everything from figuring out what to study to writing application essays, and everything in between. The platform works with students and families across Canada and the US to provide support across all aspects of the college and university transition journey.
Speaking about the company, Co-founder of Halp, Matthew McLellan, said:
“The agent market is dominated by the upper class, and we want to help the 99%.”
The startup claims that it’s coaching students from over 40 countries, but has a large focus in India by considering the potential market of lower to middle income families regarding international schools could be out of reach financially.