[Funding alert] University admissions startup AdmitKard raises $1M led by Australian edtech fund

Noida-based study abroad admissions startup AdmitKard on Tuesday announced it has raised $1 million in pre-Series A round led by Australian EdTech fund Growth DNA. The round also saw participation from other investors based out of Australia and India.

Speaking about the investment, Piyush Bhartiya, Co-founder, AdmitKard, said,

“We will use the capital to enhance our product, strengthen our AI-driven counselling algorithms, and blockchain managed partner contracts. We also plan to rapidly expand our presence across 100+ cities in India through our already thriving partner network.” 

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Founded by IIT and IIM graduates Piyush Bhartiya and Rachit Agrawal after their successful exit from their first startup “LifePad” in 2016, AdmitKard provides a “course to career” solution for students who are looking for cross-border admissions into universities and colleges. 

The startup uses the concept of “near-peer” mentoring and AI/ML to assist decision making. It connects students aspiring to study abroad with the students already studying in universities overseas through the AdmitKard platform for advice. 

“AdmitKard is a data enabled social platform which helps in eliminating information asymmetry and building trust among aspirants,” said Rachit. "It is a socially active platform by the students, for the students. Current students are passionate to guide aspirants on AdmitKard as they feel they were misguided when they were applying to study abroad,” he added.

AdmitKard has already partnered with multiple service providers ranging from test prep, student accommodation, education loans, banking, forex, etc., making it a complete solution for every student seeking to study abroad. 

The startup helps students for applying to 1,000+ universities and colleges in countries including the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and many more. With over 100,000 courses listed on AdmitKard, it claims to cover 95 percent of the global requirement of international students.

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Dheeraj Bhatia, Co-founder of Kips Learning Solutions, who led the deal from India, said,

“Student experience for college admissions both for India and international and allied services are broken and underserved. The AdmitKard approach of product and network is the key to solve the scalability issue of this domain, and will enable us to serve students from around the world.” 

In a statement, the startup said every year, more than five million students seek cross border admissions with majority of them travelling to the US, the UK, Europe, Australia and Canada, collectively paying more than $100 billion in fees and another $25 billion in allied services.

Not surprisingly, India is a key contributor to the student out-bound flow, only second to China. With multiple new countries promoting themselves as an education hub and India too joining the race, total number of students going abroad to study are expected to double by 2025, it added.

At present, AdmitKard competes with Indian and global players like SchoolApply, CollegeVine, CollegeDekho, Collegedunia, Shiksha Abroad, Kings Learning and Hotcourses Abroad among others, which also help students fulfill their overseas education dreams.

(Edited by Megha Reddy)

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