Ex-ApplyBoard CEO plans to finance skilled immigrants that meet Canada’s workforce needs through new platform.
After spending seven years helping international students apply to study abroad with Kitchener-Waterloo EdTech unicorn ApplyBoard, Martin Basiri has set his sights on a new challenge.
The ApplyBoard co-founder and former CEO’s new startup, Passage, aims to help fill Canada’s skilled labour gap.
Founded this year and armed with $40 million CAD in initial seed funding led by Ohio-based Drive Capital, Passage is building a software platform designed to match international students and immigrants to Canadian workforce needs and connect them with financing.
Whereas ApplyBoard enabled international students of means to apply to study abroad more easily, Kitchener-Waterloo’s Passage aims to help skilled folks in foreign countries who lack financial resources secure the funding required to learn and work here—a barrier that prevents many from coming to Canada in the first place. It will target both job seekers and people looking to apply to school.
“On ApplyBoard, you must have money,” Basiri told BetaKit in an interview. “At Passage, we say, ‘Hey, if you don’t have money, it’s okay, go apply.’”
Through Passage, Basiri hopes to help smart, prospective immigrants looking to study and work in in-demand fields like science, technology, engineering and mathematics, cybersecurity, and health care, but can’t afford to migrate.
Drive Capital previously led ApplyBoard’s Series C round. Basiri declined to disclose the other investors in Passage’s seed round but claimed it also saw support from other previous ApplyBoard backers.
ApplyBoard most recently raised $375 million CAD in Series D financing led by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board in 2021 at a $4 billion valuation.
Basiri quietly departed as ApplyBoard’s CEO last summer and was replaced by his brother Meti in a move that the company didn’t officially announce until early 2023.
Feature image courtesy Passage.
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