[Funding alert] Pune-based SaaS startup ExtraaEdge raises $700k in Pre-series A round from Sprout Venture Partners, others

ExtraaEdge, a Pune-based business-to-business (B2B) SaaS startup on Thursday announced that it has raised about $700,000 in a Pre-series A round led by Sprout Venture Partners, Indian Angel Network, Pune Angels, First Cheque LLP, UIncept, among other angel investors. The startup had raised a seed round earlier from a few HNIs. 

The startup plans to use the funds for expanding its customer footprint, strengthen its data science team, and product depth. It will also use the capital to expand into international markets.

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Founded in 2015 by Abhishek Ballabh and Sushil Mundada, ExtraaEdge provides market-first enrollment solutions for the education industry. Its primary solution is a cloud-based data science powered platform for student acquisition, admission management, marketing automation, conversational AI bots, and a full-stack CRM. 

The startup empowers educational institutes to make smart, data-driven enrollment decisions, and increase admission conversions and optimisation of marketing spend. ExtraaEdge has been adopted by over 130 education institutes in India and overseas, across universities, test prep, vocational, and edtech verticals. 

Its client list includes MIT Group, Jain University, CMR University, ASM Group, ALLEN, FIITJEE’s myPAT, Aakash Digital, Deeksha Learning, ICA Eduskills, and K11 Academy of  Fitness Sciences, who run their entire admission, marketing, and outreach on the ExtraaEdge platform. 

Abhishek Ballabh, Co-Founder, ExtraaEdge, said, 

“Education marketing is going through a paradigm shift. Education sector spending is growing at 18 percent. The CAGR is expected to reach $30 billion by 2025. Students need to make judicious choices. Universities and educational institutes across the globe need to make efficient decisions on acquiring good students. The admissions teams need to understand the intent and behavioural signals which becomes the key to build a brand, powerful outreach campaigns, and the ultimate admission strategy”.

The full-stack admission platform powered by data science from ExtraaEdge CRM provides marketing automation to power the education admission technology of tomorrow, he added. 

Sahil Gupta, Partner at Sprout Venture Partners, said, 

“ExtraaEdge is providing educational institutes with a data-driven tool to manage and automate their sales and leads processes. We also see some relevant applications of using AI in this space, to predict admissions as we gather large amounts of data. With increased spendings in digital marketing in education and training, there is a growing need for such products. International markets like the Middle East and Asia also offer great opportunities.”

Akhil Daswani from IAN added, “Admissions marketing is a massive pain point with high spend on client acquisition in terms of money and time. ExtraaEdge helps streamline the process and improve conversions using data analytics. We believe this market will keep growing both in India and overseas." 

Sprout Venture Partners is co-founded by Sunil Jain and Sahil Gupta. It is an early-stage VC fund, which invests up to $500,000 into product technology companies and consumer brands at seed and Pre-series A stage.

(Edited by Suman Singh)

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