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Noida-based ed-tech startup, Fastudent, has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding led by Ashish Gupta,
founder & trustee of Ashoka university.
The startup will use the funds to expand its team, strengthen technology and increase its geographical footprint. The company also plans to hire over 90 people over the next six months.
Started by IIT-IIM alumni, Gaurav Barman and Geetanjali Khanna, Fastudent offers quality international education products to students in India. The platform is an aggregator of educational product that can help education fraternity involving students, parents, schools and teachers from play group to post graduation to fulfill their academic needs.
Ashish Gupta, investor and founder & trustee of Ashoka university said, “Fastudent is trying to solve a very fundamental problem of education, which is the accessibility of academic needs. It is envisioning to make education reach the underprivileged sector where the core need of education lies.”
According to the founding members, the gap between Indian dream of Ivy league education for all students and the access to much needed world class educational products is huge. Bridging this gap can definitely help India zoom ahead of the curve and establish itself even higher on the intellectual capital index. Fastudent intends to service the education fraternity by moving into categories untouched by online retail so far.
The startup claims that the platform enables access to the best and high quality academic content for education institutes across India, even in the remotest parts of the country.
Presently, Fastudent offers more than 20,000 SKUs across eight categories including books, stationery, branded merchandise, uniforms, shoes, digital learning, sports goods, art & craft and electronics.
The startup also plans to add niche categories totalling to 32 categories, in coming months. The startup is currently servicing more than 20,000 pincodes all across India, and is rapidly expanding its operations. Fastudent is hopeful to acquire over 10 Mn paying customers by the year 2018.
Geetanjali Khanna, co-founder & COO of Fastudent added that Fastudent aims to complement the shift in consumption patterns of the education fraternity. It follows the blended model of physical educational needs coupled with consultative, customised and modularised digital learning.
The Indian education market is highly fragmented with multiple players operating in different domains. The market is poised to grow to $40 Bn by 2017.
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