Sedifly, a Singapore-based EdTech startup, announced Monday it has closed a 3 times oversubscribed six-figure pre-seed round backed by several angel investors, including serial entrepreneurs and multinational C-suite executives.
In a statement, the firm which aims to democratize access to world-class college education, said it also received an equity-free grant from Enterprise Singapore, a statutory board of the Government of Singapore, under the endorsement of Pollinate, a joint incubator of Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Singapore Polytechnic, Temasek Polytechnic, and the Institute of Technical Education.
To support Sedifly’s next stage of growth, two board directors will be joining Sedifly — Daniel Ding, a real estate veteran with nearly 25 years of experience and over $4 billion in investments, and Jessie Lim, a seasoned finance leader with over three decades of experience and current Regional Chief Financial Officer of a European-listed company where she oversees over $2 billion in revenue and a workforce of more than 140,000 employees.
These leaders bring deep expertise in expansion, governance, and strategic growth as Sedifly enters its next phase of development.
Looking ahead, Sedifly plans to use the fresh capital to expand its product capabilities, deepen AI-driven personalization, and penetrate key markets.
“Getting into college is increasingly competitive; Ivy League acceptance rates have dwindled by more than five times over the past three decades,” said Joash Lee, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Sedifly.
“We’ve seen many educational consulting firms step in to guide students, but the prices they charge are pure ludicrous — running into the millions,
“As the world’s first value-driven educational consulting firm, we aim to make things more accessible,” he added.
Founded in Singapore, Sedifly enable students worldwide to gain admission to their dream universities in the United States and United Kingdom through a holistic ecosystem of academic enrichment, extracurricular initiatives, and essay and interview mentorship.
Since launching earlier this year, the firm has seen explosive growth, having already onboarded its first cohort of students and hundreds more on its waitlist, outpacing industry conversion benchmarks by 4 times.
Supported by a high-performing team of over 20 members, the company also has several institutional partnerships in the pipeline and achieved profitability in less than a month since launch through its community-led growth strategy.
Though Sedifly is relatively new to the market, its team of strategists are industry veterans and have decades of educational consulting experience combined, having already helped students gain acceptances into top colleges such as Harvard, Stanford, and Oxbridge.
“I’ve had a full circle journey with educational consulting, first as a student, then employee, and now as a founder,
“Interacting with thousands of students made me realize the problems in the space and want to build something that not only does ‘well,’ but ‘good’ too, and Sedifly’s mission is to make educational consulting more affordable and transparent,” added Lee.
According to Lee, the initial plan was to bootstrap since fundraising wasn’t necessary given Sedifly’s high margins and low overhead.
However, seeing strong investor interest and their ability to add strategic value, he decided to raise a pre-seed and closed the round in under a month.
“This fundraise underscores our commitment to growth without compromising on the values upon which we were founded,
“We’re grateful for the support we’ve received from our board directors and investors thus far, and their diverse set of expertise as builders and corporate executives has provided us with strategic depth, guided our governance, and landed institutional credibility,” said Lee.
With an ambitious roadmap and a rapidly growing global presence, Sedifly said the firm stands at the forefront of a new wave of value-driven educational innovation from Asia.
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