ETS Strategic Capital Announces New Deals, Expands Portfolio

PRINCETON, N.J. (March 11, 2021) — ETS Strategic Capital, a unit within ETS focused on growing its educational business and advancing the organization’s strategic mission impact through equity investments, growth partnerships, and mergers and acquisitions, today announced new deals with two companies that allow for the further expansion of the group’s portfolio.

The new companies joining ETS Strategic Capital’s portfolio include:

MPOWER^® Financing: A Washington, D.C. and Bangalore, India based FinTech lender focused on increasing access for the international and DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) student communities that are currently underserved by conventional banks. ETS Strategic Capital made a minority investment in MPOWER Financing’s most recently-closed financing round and plans to leverage its largely international connections to student borrowers in Asia-Pacific regions, primarily India and China. This connection will aim to help increase synergies between student borrowers globally and ETS’s GRE^® and TOEFL^® programs. https://www.mpowerfinancing.com

“MPOWER is delighted to be working with ETS and exploring ways to support the millions of students who test with them globally every year. By democratizing access to financing, we hope an even greater number of qualified students around the globe will venture to study in North America,” said Manu Smadja, MPOWER Financing’s CEO and Co-founder. “As impact-oriented firms with a global outlook, our teams instantly connected and are excited to help students attain the best possible educational outcomes.”

Vericant: Vericant is comprised of United States, China and internationally-located teams of admissions professionals who are working to help transform the face of international admissions and assessment. Vericant aims to aid admissions officers in being able to better evaluate their candidates through 1:1 video interviews, allowing them to make informed decisions with comprehensive information. Via a cross-border M&A transaction, ETS Strategic Capital has acquired Vericant, which going forward will operate as a new subsidiary of ETS. Vericant’s services are not new to ETS – they were previously utilized in strategic collaboration as part of ETS’s TOEFL ITP^® Plus for China solution, which was developed to support Chinese students while in-person TOEFL iBT^® testing was suspended as a result of COVID-19. https://www.vericant.com/

“Our broader vision is to have a video interview with every application to the institutions,” said Guy Sivan, CEO of Vericant. “We have spent years focused on developing and delivering the tools, systems and expertise of our interviews-as-a-service solution to institutions and students worldwide and I can’t think of a better way to continue to expand our impact than by joining ETS.”

MPOWER Financing and Vericant join ETS Strategic Capital’s already robust portfolio that bring innovative technology, new business models and enhanced geographic coverage, as well as complimentary technological capabilities to ETS’s current business areas. The previously announced deals include those with ApplyBoard, Capti, EdAgree, Pipplet and Gradschoolmatch.

“Our newest investments and acquisitions are a reflection of our mandate to leverage external inorganic entrepreneurial high-growth tech business innovations to expand on the capabilities and align to the mission of ETS,” said Ralph Taylor-Smith, the Managing Director of ETS Strategic Capital. “Through equity investments, growth partnerships and M&A, we continue to explore new and emerging business opportunities globally for ETS to serve learners worldwide.”

About ETS Strategic Capital

ETS Strategic Capital serves as the private equity investment and M&A execution arm for ETS, its subsidiaries and its partners sourcing transactions within both the domestic United States and internationally. The unit partners with the broader EdTech ecosystem to identify and execute deals, coordinate with other ETS business units to identify opportunities and needs, network with professional services firms with education expertise, and build direct relationships with businesses internationally — especially within Asia Pacific, Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Middle East & Africa (MENA) regions. ETS Strategic Capital targets private equity investments that are typically in Series B, C or later; acquisitions that are middle-market in scale; and growth partnerships that may involve joint ventures (JVs), channel-affiliate or distribution agreements, Intellectual Property (IP) licensing and technology-transfer relationships. https://www.ets.capital/

About ETS

At ETS, we advance quality and equity in education for people worldwide by creating assessments based on rigorous research. ETS serves individuals, educational institutions and government agencies by providing customized solutions for teacher certification, English language learning, and elementary, secondary and postsecondary education, and by conducting education research, analysis and policy studies. Founded as a nonprofit in 1947, ETS develops, administers and scores more than 50 million tests annually — including the TOEFL^® and TOEIC^® tests, the GRE^® tests and The Praxis Series^® assessments — in more than 180 countries, at over 9,000 locations worldwide. www.ets.org