ApplyBoard
- 🦄Became a unicorn2021
- 📈Peak valuation$3.2 Billion ’21
- 💔Became a Unitard2024
- 💸Last valuation~$832M
How it happened
ApplyBoard is a Canadian edtech platform that helps international students find and apply to colleges abroad, earning commissions from schools. Riding the pandemic-era boom, it raised a $475M Series D in 2021 that valued it at $3.2B, backed by Ontario Teachers' Venture Growth, Drive Capital and BDC. Its fortunes turned when Canada — its core market — sharply capped international-student visas, cutting application volumes; by 2024 its valuation had fallen roughly 74% to under $1B. Glassdoor reviews describe the squeeze: repeated layoff rounds — reviewers counted several over roughly two years, a few tied to the visa clampdown — frequent restructuring, management churn, and Canadian roles increasingly shifted to lower-cost teams in India.
Employee accounts paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗. See our methodology.
Source: The PIE News / Wikipedia / OPMwire (Canadian international-student recruitment platform backed by Ontario Teachers' Venture Growth, Drive Capital and BDC; reached a $3.2B valuation on a 2021 Series D that raised $475M; Canada's cap on international-student visas hit its business and its valuation fell ~74% to under $1B by 2024)
