Education marketplace EduKart raises $1M funding to make further dent in the $60B sector
India's education sector is pegged over US $60 billion, with higher education sector amounting to almost 50 percent, K12 taking up 40 percent, and coaching, skill-based learning and other non-formal areas amounting to 10 percent.
New Delhi-based education marketplace EduKart has raised USD 1 million from Holostik Group’s United Finsec (family office arm), Yuvraj Singh's YouWeCan Ventures and 500 Startups. Existing investors, including Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Manish Kheterpal, Amit Patni and Arihant Patni, and Stanford Business School’s alumni angels have also participated in the current round.
Edukart was co-founded in 2011 by Ishan Gupta, a Stanford University (USA) alumnus, and Mayank Gupta, a graduate of Indian Institute of Management. While Mayank had earlier worked in Educomp, StudyPlaces.com, IBM and Bank of America, Ishan was an ex-Facebook employee and an early Paytm team member.
Edukart and the funds deployment
Over the last year, EduKart has partnered with more than 90 course providers to promote and drive enrollments in more than 2000 courses in K12, entrance coaching, degrees, diplomas, short courses and industry relevant certifications through its marketplace.
The investment will be deployed in three major areas:
- Technology: to further upgrade the marketplace platform
- Sales: towards increasing the course portfolio (adding more courses)
- Marketing: Increasing the enrollment in the courses
The company has attracted the top tier talent from the likes of Google, Pearson PLC, Wiley, and Monster Inc to join in leadership positions and build various functions of the company. "The company continues to hire more and a considerable amount of funds will be utilized for the same," confirmed Ishan.
Related read: ‘We need to put a shark in our tank and see how far we can really go!’ Richa Singh of EduKart
Key strengths
While on one hand, EduKart has been successful in helping students and parents make informed education-related decisions, on the other it has given various course providers a platform to expand their reach to Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities across India. Its services like dedicated counseling support and flexible payment options are establishing the company as a go-to destination for figuring out one’s educational needs.
According to Ishan, the key strengths of Edukart include:
- Engaging with institutions to help them come online and to promote their courses.
- Sales & marketing: Drive enrollments for the course providers.
- Student support throughout the journey.
Investor's interest
Yuvraj Singh says,
I have always believed that following your passion is very important in life. At the same time, a focus on education is also a must in today's cut-throat competitive environment.
According to Pankaj Jain of 500 Startups, education spending is on the rise among the tech savvy Indian middle class and the online distribution of education products and services will have significant growth in the coming years. He believes that the highly effective EduKart.com team is ideally positioned to execute on this opportunity with a very strong course portfolio and mindshare amongst prospective students.
What does the future look like?
Edukart is aiming at 5x growth this year. Ishan said,
We're looking to increase the offered courses from 2000 to 10,000 and take the course providers count from 100 to 500. We are also focusing on our enterprise solution business which helps organisations run educational courses for their employees. For example, in KPOs, BPOs and financial institutions.
In the next three years, EduKart is looking to drive gross enrollment sales of over $100M for its course providers, by enrolling 100,000+ students annually.
Ishan concludes,
Funding is not the end goal, it is just a part of the journey where we aim to become the largest marketplace of course providers in India.