NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Halp, a tech-enabled international college admissions coach, today announced the close of a $4M seed funding round. Lerer Hippeau and Serena Ventures led the funding. Also participating were N49P, Shed Capital, Gambit Partners, and angels including Sam Blyth, Drew Stevens, Merrick Read, Kaiz Alarakyia, Kyle Doner, and Brandon Swartz.
Halp helps international students get into and afford college. The student journey from program discovery to landing on campus is gatekept by misinformation and archaic processes like faxing application packages. For support, students turn to a highly fragmented group of agents, set up like professional service firms. Agents charge fees, don’t use technology and push high-commission programs onto students. The system is complex, time-consuming, expensive, and offline.
“Halp makes learning accessible for everyone, starting with international admissions coaching,” said Matthew McLellan, co-founder, and CEO of Halp. “Studying abroad is a catalyst to evening the global socio-economic playing field. We help students manage the entire journey on-platform, supported by a personal coach - for free. We make the experience simple, online, affordable, and more effective. Halp drives above-market placement rates and allows students to graduate with less debt - at scale.”
“The international admissions market is set to quadruple in the next few years,” said Andrea Hippeau, Partner at Lerer Hippeau. “But the current system is clumsy and untrustworthy. Students need a tech-forward solution to help manage all of the challenges related to studying abroad in Canada, the U.S., and beyond, and Halp is best positioned to bring the industry into the modern age.”
“Halp is in a position to make a large-scale impact through access to education,” said Serena Williams, founding partner at Serena Ventures. “Clearing paths for traditionally underserved students in developing countries allows for more diverse classroom dynamics as well as workforces when these students join the labor market. It aligns with our thesis around empowering others through access to opportunity.”
Halp’s vision is to become the infrastructure, bank, and teacher for the next billion global learners. In the near future, there will be a single platform of record where every student works to reach their goals. It will bundle coaching, banking, learning, and job placement to support learners around the world in achieving goals throughout their lives. Halp is building a one-stop platform to be that company.
About Halp
Halp is a tech-enabled admissions coaching platform founded by Matthew McLellan, Marc Fielding, and Justin Mills. To learn more, visit their website or check out their open roles here.
About Lerer Hippeau
Lerer Hippeau is an early-stage venture capital firm founded and operated in New York City. Since 2010, we have invested in entrepreneurs who embody this city’s audacity, endurance, and winning mindset — good people with great ideas who aren’t afraid to do hard things. Our portfolio includes more than 350 leading enterprise and consumer businesses including Guideline, MIRROR, Blockdaemon, K Health, Allbirds, ZenBusiness, and Thrive. We’re experienced operators who invest early and stay in our founders’ corners as they build iconic companies. Learn more at lererhippeau.com.
About Serena Ventures
Serena Ventures has raised $111 million to invest in early-stage companies that solve everyday problems through unconventional thinking and diverse points of view. With a mission to unlock value for investors, doors for founders, and opportunities for everyone to live better, the fund is focused on investing in startups that make the everyday lives of people better through fintech for underbanked, health, wellness, femtech, marketplaces, consumer and even crypto and Web 3.0.
