INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Earlier this year, the world turned very sour on a group of rich and famous parents who were exposed for having paid big money to get their
not-so-academic offspring into competitive universities, using tactics like cheating on tests and more to get those offers
But even if you put illegal manoeuvres to one side, money and power have (frustratingly) long played roles in gaming the system to access
hallowed halls has raised some funding as it continues to grow
need to do in terms of academic and other activity to get in, has closed a $5 million round of funding
With this latest investment, the company is now valued at $245 million post-money, a big jump on the $160 million (NZ$220 million) valuation
Crimson had in 2016 when Tiger Global invested $30 million.This latest is a small but strategic round: The money is coming from Solborn
country (Korea has a huge population of young people who are very keen to study outside the country)
another new market for the company: students in the United States , looking for better guidance to get into schools in the United States The
built around this.The company currently works with 1,500 tutors and has had 20,000 students use its platform to date
There have been more than 60 offers to Crimson students for places at Ivy League schools; a further 160+ to Oxford, Cambridge and other
competitive schools; and more than 500 successful applications to the top 50 universities in the United States As for the business model,
The average revenue per student in the United States ranges between $5,000 and $10,000
started in 2014 after one of the founders, Jamie Beaton, decided he wanted to apply to top schools beyond his native New Zealand
He eventually ended up at Harvard, and on the way he identified a gap in the market for international students who wanted to do the same but
So, he decided to build his own experience and methods into a business with two equally ambitious co-founders (Sharndre Kushor, pictured
below with Beaton, and Fangzhou Jiang)
just a network of human tutors, but a set of proprietary algorithms to identify what a student needs to do and the likelihood of achieving
to help Crimson students access and get scholarships and other financial aid to study.Initially focused on international students who need
help navigating the waters of applying to schools elsewhere, it turns out that domestic students need and want the same kind of advice and
help, too.Beaton is now 24, and unsurprisingly has become something of a poster child for Crimson because of his own grit-and-determination
Focused on the whole of your last two years of school and mandatory, most people take only three focused on what they eventually want to
major in as an undergrad).Beaton had made the effort to engage outside tutors for all the subjects that his New Zealand high school could
not accommodate, and engaged others to help him prepare for United States -specific exams like the SAT, as well as work through the
application process for the many schools whose admissions applications he filled out.And since his undergrad years at Harvard, where he
a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford studying public policy.So as the company continues to grow, it will be worth watching how it navigates its brand,
its message and the inevitable involvement of more than the early adopting high-achievers who have used Crimson to date.That is to say, the
have a lot of focus and academic ability and may therefore be predisposed to succeeding through the platform
How will that change as it grows in popularity, and how will Crimson measure its success?In answer to the question, Beaton said that there
is already a lot of academic analysis in place to make sure that Crimson is not effectively an echo chamber, providing help to those who are
already well along the way to academic success
Crimson can capture that successfully, there is a lot of potential for the company to transcend the university admissions use case and
provide an effective platform to replace those slightly stilted, standardised careers quizzes that exist today to help wayward teenagers
