Upgrade Education, a leading player in the field of personalized mentoring for admission to the world’s top universities, said it completed the EUR 200,000 investment in the new online mentoring platform Agora. The platform is currently used by more than 500 students and over 150 mentors.

The company said that Agora allows students enrolled in the Upgrade programs to access courses, plan mentoring sessions, complete homework and tasks, and check their knowledge after completing a course “through quizzes developed to boost student progress.”

“Upgrade is today at its highest performing point. The Agora platform is live and stable, and in the next version, which will be ready by the end of the year, we are preparing to integrate a module based on Artificial Intelligence, but also to open it up and capitalize on resources through a subscription module,” said Constantin Bosinceanu, the founder of Upgrade Education.

“Since the beginning of this year, we have been working intensively on international expansion, and this quarter we managed to generate approximately 15% of revenue from students who are not from Romania. Our business model is based on mentors who have studied the same subject and at the same university to which the student wants to apply, therefore, by the end of the year, we aim for at least 30% of the revenue to come from the international area and also, in addition to Romania, the opening of a local office in another country in Europe,” he added.

In 2022, most of the Romanian students who used Upgrade Education services were interested in Business & Management (30%), Computer Science (27%), and Law (11%).

According to internal studies quoted by the startup, over 15,000 Romanian students leave annually to study at universities in the European Union, the UK or the US. Most prefer EU universities (80%), while the remaining 20% are split between the UK and the US.

In recent years, due to Brexit and the tightening of financial conditions for EU students, those who would usually have opted for universities in the UK are now turning to universities in the Netherlands, Italy or Spain, the same source said. At the European level, roughly 20% are directly interested in studying in the US.

Upgrade Education was launched in 2017. It offers personalized mentoring for admission, career counseling, SAT preparation, Creative Writing or any other specific exam practiced by the top 150 universities in the world, from Europe, the UK, and the US. It attracted a first round of investment at the end of 2021, worth around EUR 350,000, with the objective of digitizing personalized training through an online platform.

So far, Upgrade Education has helped more than 1,000 Romanian students enter the much-dreamed-of university, achieving a success rate of over 80%.

irina.marica@romania-insider.com

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