New Paradigm Investment makes seed investment in Leo Corporation

Paradigm Investment announced on the 2nd that it had made a seed investment in Leo Corporation, an online admissions consulting startup.

Pacemaker, Leo Corporation’s online admissions consulting brand, offers personalized one-on-one consulting to students seeking admission to college through holistic admissions based on their school records. New Paradigm Investment decided to make the seed investment.

Launched in February this year, Pacemaker was founded by CEO Shin Dam-hee, who is studying economics at Seoul National University. In May, it became the first online consulting company in South Korea to be licensed as a private academy.

All of Pacemaker’s coordinators and consultants are professionals who were admitted to Seoul National University through holistic admissions based on their school records. Its core offering is a personalized service that draws on expertise in rolling admissions.

Using its proprietary “editing module,” the company provides students online learning content for all subjects and a learning management system, including two rounds of feedback on their school records. All Pacemaker admissions consulting is delivered through a web service, with consultations conducted by chatbot.

Pacemaker also differentiates itself from other admissions consulting services with programs for closely managing students’ school records, including records from Seoul National University admits, recommended reading lists, targeted lectures, personal statement editing, and roadmap consulting.

“With this investment, we’ll strengthen our offerings by developing lecture content organized by topic and subject,” said Leo Corporation CEO Shin Dam-hee. “We plan to launch services that assess students’ chances of admission and provide guidance on areas to improve, based on school-record data. Within the next three years, we hope to launch the first system in South Korea to predict rolling admissions results.”

Shin added, “We should move away from an unfair admissions system that depends heavily on parents’ financial resources, as well as expensive private education. Our main target is students at general high schools who want to attend their preferred university and major through Pacemaker’s affordable programs. Our goal is to strengthen students’ individual competitiveness in their school records, the most important material evaluated for college admissions. We’ll expand our online school-record consulting service, which incorporates Pacemaker’s strategies, including how to craft compelling stories.”

In March, Leo Corporation filed a patent application for a “school-record management system and method for effective learning and success in rolling admissions.”

“Pacemaker, an online-only admissions consulting service, is the first consulting company in South Korea to register as a private academy,” said Park Je-hyun, CEO of New Paradigm Investment. “We invested because it has filed for a business method patent for its innovative business model using information systems and is taking on the private education market, which is worth more than 20 trillion won. With the pandemic continuing, the remote education market is drawing attention. We expect Pacemaker’s distinctive online consulting service to grow into a compelling brand in the contactless admissions consulting field.”