Edtech Startup Sunstone Eduversity Raises INR 24 Cr Funding Led By Saama Capital

Edtech startup Sunstone Eduversity has raised INR 24 Cr in Series A funding. The funding was led by Saama Capital, with participation from Ashish Gupta, Pankaj Bansal. Existing investors, Prime Venture Partners, Rajul Garg and Purvi Capital also participated in the round.

The Gurugram-based startup is planning to use the fresh capital to invest in its technology platform, hiring and curriculum. The company is also planning to use the funds to strengthen its efforts in creating industry-ready professionals and building its network of colleges across multiple cities.

Last year, Sunstone Eduversity has raised INR 11.35 Cr (approximately $1.5 Mn) in seed funding led by Prime Venture Partners.

The startup plans to expand into 15 cities and enroll over 3000 students by July 2021, the press note said.

“We are delighted to welcome Saama Capital into the Sunstone family. Sunstone Eduversity is fixing the problem of large scale skill gaps in students by adopting one simple principle, Accountability. By collecting fees only after our students get jobs, we make sure that all the cogs in our system are working towards the success of our students. One of the challenges faced by freshers is the lack of industry-relevant skills that reduce their chances of getting hired by reputed companies. We focus on imparting practical skills training instead of outdated theory and remote learning methods. For the batch of 2019-21, we generated more than 450 Internship offers even during this pandemic,” said Ashish Munjal, co-founder, Sunstone Eduversity.

Founded by Ashish Munjal and Piyush Nangru, Sunstone Eduversity primarily focuses on equipping students with expertise to tackle everyday business problems across verticals. The startup has partnership with five colleges and private universities in three cities. It plans to partner with 10 more colleges soon. Sunstone Eduversity also has corporate tie-ups to develop specialisations such as BFSI, logistics, sales management, digital marketing and others. The company offers a unique ‘pay after placement’ model, and saw applications from students jumping fourfold to 10,000 this year. Sunstone enrolled 1,000 students this year, which it claims is a threefold increase compared to last year.

The edtech startup’s pay-after-placement model allows students to focus on completing the course rather than worry about financing their higher education. At the time of enrollment, a registration fee of INR 65K is charged for the two-year full-time programme. On completion of the course and only after getting a job, the student is required to pay the fee, which is 10x the monthly salary they bag in the placement round. This can be paid in instalments and the startup will also help placed students get financing help for the fee.

Edtech Startups On A Roll

India has more than 1.5 Mn schools with over 260 Mn students enrolled and about 751 universities and over 35K colleges. Every year millions of students take competitive exams at various levels, with millions of rupees spent in the background on schooling, coaching, training and more. Yet, no player in the edtech sector can claim to be profitable so far. Except for BYJU’S most edtech startups are currently grappling with massive losses and are burning cash at a fast pace.

For instance, According to Inc42Plus The Future Of India’s $2 Bn Edtech Opportunity Report 2020, between January 2014 and September 2019, BYJU’S alone attracted 65% of the total funding in edtech startups.