HEAL Partners Leads $10m Funding Round for Edstart

Edstart, a Sydney based start-up founded in 2016 that offers payment plans for school education fees, has raised $10m in a Series B capital raise led by Australian-based global growth fund HEAL Partners. The funding round was also strongly supported by existing investors, including NAB Ventures and Larsen Ventures.

With over $300 million of funding plans issued, Edstart has grown by 200% annually over the past three years, with its customer numbers doubling in the past 12 months alone.

Edstart provides cash flow certainty to schools and other education providers whilst enabling flexibility for customers to make payments in line with their own household budget.

Edstart’s customers have strongly endorsed the funding model, with over 80% of customers actively referring to their friends and family. The start-up registered a net promoter score (NPS) of 83 this year making it one of the highest rated companies globally for customer satisfaction.

Second to a mortgage, K-12 school fees are one of the largest household expenses for Australian families, with significant lump sum payments presenting a major cash flow challenge, particularly in multi-child households. Edstart offers a range of payment plan options to help customers better manage these costs by spreading payments either across or beyond the period of tuition.

HEAL Partner Martin Dalgleish said education fee payments represented a large market opportunity with the pain points for both the education providers and customers clearly solved by the Edstart offering.

“We know more than 40% of Australian families attend fee-paying schools, with the both the size of the sector and the associated fees continuing to grow rapidly,” Mr Dalgleish said.

“We were very pleased to partner with Edstart as the leading provider in this sector and to support their next phase of growth. Education expenses are a material component in the household budget and Edstart delivers a solution that smooths payments – whilst at the same time helps schools lower their administrative burden.”

Edstart CEO Jack Stevens, said it was pleasing to be delivering proven value to both education providers and their customers. “We believe education is the world’s most powerful investment and we’re on a mission to help people pay for that in a better way,” Mr Stevens said.

“Technology is a powerful enabler, and there is no better example than the way that Edstart is delivering financial services to the education sector - providing a customer experience that is simple and offers high value, whilst removing overall costs from the ecosystem.”

“We’re thrilled to welcome HEAL Partners as shareholders to join us on the next phase of our journey. The team at HEAL have immense experience across the finance, technology and education sectors which makes them uniquely qualified to partner with us to accelerate our impact.”


About Edstart:
Edstart was founded by a passionate team of Australian education and finance specialists who believe in the power of education. Their mission is to help children get a quality education and graduate from the school of their choice.

Edstart’s proprietary technology platform ensures that education providers collect fee payments on time and in full, whilst providing customers with peace of mind and maximum flexibility around how and when they pay.


About HEAL Partners:
HEAL is a growth stage acceleration investment vehicle focused on revenue generating growth businesses in the health, education and lifestyle sectors with the potential for global scale or industry disruption. Led by a team of proven founders, investors, portfolio managers and operators, HEAL Partners are focused on capitalising on opportunities created by new specialties in developed markets