Personal online counseling platform GrowthEX raises angel funding

GrowthEX, a global platform enabling personal and professional growth through online counselling, programmes, and peer engagement has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from a group of angel investors from Chandigarh.

The funds, they said, will be used to scale up the number of experts on the platform from the current 5,000 to 25,000 and programmes from the current 1,000 to 10,000 in the next year.

"We believe that mental health can be fostered for an individual only with a strongly blended personal and professional growth, and that is where the spectrum of programmes, counsellors, influencers, and community meets help our users," says Varun Saxena, CEO, GrowthEX.

Varun Saxena is an MBA from NITIE Mumbai, and also holds a B.Tech from a premier government institute. He had acquired more than four years of industry experience working with CIOs and CMOs of US and European clients before starting his own venture. He is also the author of a couple of academic books and is a motivational speaker as well.

GrowthEX has more than one lakh users, 5,000 counsellors, and 1,000 programmes. Apart from India, GrowthEX has paying users from countries like Singapore, Qatar, Brazil, and Nigeria. The community boasts of a stronger user engagement, with a user spending more than 12 minutes daily on an average on the platform, with a strong 40 percent non-incentivised referral rate.

More than 80 percent of the content distribution is in the form of videos, and 58 percent of the content usage is through mobile. More than 400,000 hours of counselling have been provided to users till date.

"Some of the top experts have been earning up to Rs 2 lakh per programme already, merely by following their passion, and it has encouraged a plethora of industry stalwarts, ranging from psychologists to skill up experts to psychiatrists to investment bankers to relationship counsellors to IIT and IIM graduates to consultants from Big 4 companies to retired defence personnel, to host their programmes or to join as counsellors,” adds Varun.

In addition to traditional professional development and career enhancement programmes, GrowthEX offers programmes and services in some of the very unique areas within life and relationships, ranging from body language while dating to how to overcome a break up to counselling over topics like extra marital affairs and sexual wellness. This is coupled with the availability of industry influencers offering counselling in areas like profile building, entrepreneurship, creativity, test prep, and language learning.

"We are a two and half-year-old company, growing at the rate of 300 percent YoY. Technology and features are something that anyone can develop with capital in hand, but it is the trust of customers through strong offline and online engagement, and the value they find in our offerings, that makes us stand apart," says Varun.

In addition to a nine member-strong team, GrowthEX also has Subinder Khurana on its advisory board. Subinder is currently a member of the board at TiE Delhi, a member of the NASSCOM Product Council, and was earlier the Chair of TiE Entrepreneurship Nurturing Programme and a NASSCOM-Emerge Mentor.

GrowthEX is also in advance discussions with some of the institutional funds for its next round. The next round of raised funds, they claim, will primarily be targeted at exponential growth, both in India and other South Asian countries.

“In the next year, we are looking to touch the lives of a million users by enabling them to grow in their lives. We also aim to extend the share of customers from outside India to 15 percent,” says Varun.

Website: GrowthEX