ISB DLabs’ EduRISE Accelerator Program: Renewed growth and steadfast support for India’s edtech startups

The past year propelled India’s edtech sector into the mainstream. As the world grappled with the pandemic’s effects, the global education sector had to quickly rethink and reimagine strategies to cater to pupils and teachers. At the peak of the pandemic, around 1.3 billion learners could not attend school or university, with 320 million students affected in India. As per UNESCO, about 63 million teachers in 165 countries were impacted by the crisis.

But these setbacks gave the world an opportunity to introduce smarter solutions to counter the hurdles. India’s edtech ecosystem is currently seeing incredible growth, with new innovations and leaps ahead. DLabs in collaboration with Indian School of Business (ISB) launched their EduRISE Accelerator Program, aimed to bridge the gap in India’s education system caused by the pandemic.

Through the program, DLabs leveraged its expertise and collaborated with various experts in the field to encourage innovation among India’s thriving startup ecosystem. The program will reach its finale with a demo day, organised for startups to showcase their innovations and get funded. Before EduRISE, DLabs has successfully implemented over 12 cohorts, which saw over 70 startups across industries being funded and led to the graduation of over 124 startups.

The DLabs edge

For years, DLabs has hosted a state-of-the-art space for entrepreneurs to interact, engage and collaborate with mentors, investors, and academia. As the Technology Business Incubator established at the Indian School of Business under the aegis of Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, DLabs collaborates with diverse stakeholders to design custom programs to help startups come up with innovative solutions that will in turn enable them to scale their operations. The primary objective at DLabs has been to strengthen the spirit of entrepreneurship among the young leaders across the country. Startups at DLabs have access to expert business mentors, top industry experts, investors, corporates, government connections, ISB faculty and the vast network of ISB alumni present across the globe.

Leveraging edtech startups

COVID-19 caused a massive shift in the education world, with dependence on online modes of learning. But the limited access to digital and virtual learning platforms left various mid-level education institutions (public schools, private schools, K12, higher education institutes) scrambling for solutions.

Keeping these challenges in mind, DLabs’ EduRISE Accelerator Program identified 15 promising early growth stage startups from the edtech sector, who are working to improve the learning and management systems, campus life and ease of administrative processes through digital tools and unique technologies. Through EduRISE, these startups got tangible support across various functional areas through mentorship and networking from domain experts and partner organisations. The program was designed to help startups scale with go-to market strategies, address common challenges and truly work on changing the face of India’s education sector.

EduRISE support included:

• Fine-tune their business model for growth readiness
• Help in defining the go-to market strategy
• Opportunity to pilot test with academic institutions and other allied ecosystem stakeholders
• Process standardisation
• End-user flexibility
• Integration of the larger ecosystem

Introduction to the 15 edtech startups

The program is supporting 15 edtech startups, who are leveraging the sector with new-age technologies like AI/ML, Blockchain, Data Science, AR VR (Augmented + Virtual Reality), Cloud Technology, Enterprise Software, Networking, Finance Technology and many more. Here are the startups in focus:

1. ThinkTac: ThinkTac programmes are curriculum integrated, hands-on and deliver tangible learning outcomes, offering extensive digital content and live webinars for the experience and concept connection.
2. Solvio: Solvio is a deep-tech education company building the technology to digitise, understand and auto-grade descriptive answers of students using Artificial Intelligence.
3. Heraizen Technologies: DHI by Heraizen is the only real-time, AI-powered Accreditation and Ranking product for educational institutions. This is enabled by an accreditation-aligned ERP.
4. TruScholar: TruScholar, a blockchain-based credential management platform lets universities, institutes/edtech firms, online learning platforms, event organisers and corporates to issue secured, immutable and verifiable digital certificates and digital badges.
5. EdPrime: The company helps schools, especially focusing on underserved Tier II cities and lower, to adopt technology from admission till issuance of Transfer Certificate, including Learning Management System, online examination and one-of-its-kind marketplace.
6. Vawsum: Vawsum is an all-in-one school ecosystem app. Students learn from teachers, teachers engage with parents, students get exposure to experts from industry and higher educational institutions and schools run their operations seamlessly.
7. Linways: Linways AMS is an AI-powered learning platform which provides personalised learning and improves teaching quality. Its application acts as a personal assistant to the learner as well as the teacher.
8. CoachDirect: They promote a healthy lifestyle by offering sports and fitness coaching, wellness programmes, sports event management and life coaching.
9. Unikul Solutions: Unikul provides vertically integrated software solutions for global educational institutions that creates and manages meaningful real-time information for decision making, seamless academic experience and delivers disproportionate value across the entire student lifecycle.
10. Xamplay: This is an educator-focused blended learning solution. Educators can use the insights to identify areas and improve their teaching effectiveness.
11. Ken42: Ken42 is an end-to-end education ecosystem that revolutionises how institutes grow their brand and increase their student base, administrators manage their institutions, faculty impart learning, and how students gain academic and real-world knowledge and skills.
12. Kriyo: Kriyo offers a comprehensive solution to schools to easily manage all their day-to-day operations from admission enquiries, fee payments, communication with parents, student’s learning management and a lot more in just a single app.
13. WitBlox: Working in the STEM education space, they have created a gamified robotics learning app for children (8 – 16 years).
14. Next Skills 360: The company helps government school students learn coding with a cardboard computer (with built-in Analytics). Home users can use it as a fun subscription box.
15. Schooglink: This provides affordable quality education to 85 percent of rural India using a unique hybrid online-offline smart classroom model.

Demo Day:

ISB DLabs has partnered with FundEnable to provide fundraising assistance to EduRISE startups. Through intensive mentoring sessions and masterclasses, ventures were prepared for raising their rounds of capital. ISB DLabs is scheduled to organise the EduRISE accelerator program demo day on November 18, 2021 from 10 am to 1.30 pm.

If you’re an investor who wants to contribute to India’s edtech startups and attend EduRISE Accelerator Program’s Demo Day on November 18, 2021 contact the team at [email protected]. To know more about the startups, and for demos or partnerships, click here.