The investment is almost a doubling of the previous funding raised, bringing the total Series A round to $22.7m (USD$17.5m) after the company secured $12 million in 2020.

Over the next 12 months Adventus.io will seek to expand from 12 to 30 countries and open new offices in the US, sign some 6,000 recruitment partners to the marketplace and nearly double its team from 245 to 400 employees.

Led by venture capital firm Our Innovation Fund, the new funding sees NCN INVESTMENTS and Kin Group USA join existing investors 333 Capital.

The company is also seeking to process more than 25,000 student applications by this time in 2022, as it works on its mission to help 100,000 students find the right university places annually by 2025.

Currently some 2,800 recruitment partners in eight countries are using the platform, and over the past year it has signed up a new university a week, Financial Review reported.

“The realisation that universities need to digitally connect their student recruitment efforts has driven a more than doubling of institution partnerships on the Adventus.io marketplace over the last 12 months to more than 1,000 institutions today,” co-founder and CEO Ryan Trainor said.

“More than 40% of new university partnerships are coming from the US”

“Although universities are signing up to Adventus.io all over the world, more than 40% of new university partnerships are coming from the US.

“The Adventus.io marketplace ultimately ensures we have globally democratised access for students to make fully informed decisions and enrol at the university that best suits their personal needs and ambitions.”

Jerry Stesel, founding partner at OIF, said that the Adventus.io team had impressed “since day one”.

“To scale to 200 people within 12 months of formally launching is impressive and shows us they can effectively execute their growth ambitions,” he said.

“The product is clearly resonating with students and universities, especially in the US which really excites us. We have a strong track record supporting companies’ US expansion, connecting them with customers and investors through our deep US network.

“By leading this round, we’re focused on being an integral and value-adding partner for the Adventus.io team to rapidly accelerate their growth from here.”

“We want to be the default for the industry and by 2024 we think we could place 70,000 to 100,000 students around the world [each year], which would be a significant contributor to the industry,” Trainor told the Financial Review.

Adventus.io’s SaaS-based subscription model has been a key factor driving its adoption by recruitment agents, Trainor added. Recruiters are passed on 100% commission and Adventus.io gets paid a monthly subscription.

“The beauty of bringing technology to the industry is also data. We’ve really set ourselves up as a trusted conduit between the institution and recruiters,” Trainor told Start Up Daily.

“Ultimately we’re a data business. There’s never been any optics around data in these areas because it’s been so fragmented.

“There’s been no analytics or data to help institutions better understand recruitment, so this is really interesting, even from a government perspective. We’ve got live market data now from students all around the world during their decision-making; student profiling and all these insights that haven’t been accessed before.”