A crowdfunding platform helping MBA students from Africa and Asia to attend top US and European business schools has raised ￡100m from a group of institutions and entrepreneurs, including Betfair co-founder Ed Wray.
Prodigy Finance was co-founded by three Insead business school graduates, led by South African-born chief executive Cameron Stevens, after discovering that many classmates had been refused bank finance despite their higher than average future earnings potential.
The average salary for an MBA graduate from Harvard Business School is $180,000 three years after graduation, according to FT rankings data. But overseas students often struggle to persuade banks to lend them the money to pay the six-figure course fees because they lack a US credit record.