India-headquartered student recruitment company Leverage Edu has announced plans to launch operations in Nigeria with a new office in Lagos, following its expansion into the UK earlier in 2021. Up to two dozen people are to be hired for the Lagos office, capitalising on strong organic demand from Nigeria, where over 100,000 Nigerian students already visit the platform each month.
"Over the last three to four months, given the very high organic inbound reach from Nigeria on our platform, we had the chance to counsel hundreds of students — so setting up operations there was just the next logical step," said founder and CEO Akshay Chaturvedi. The company attributed the growth to its direct-to-consumer approach and high conversion percentages driven by strong relationships with universities.
The expansion aligns with growing numbers of Nigerian students pursuing overseas education, with the percentage of Nigerian students at UK institutions rising 83% year-on-year to over 17,000. Shubham Bansal, an early employee, will take the role of General Manager of Nigerian operations, based in Lagos. Leverage Edu intends to focus initially on UK and US destinations for Nigerian students.
