EdTech Startup EduRev Raises Pre-Series A Round  

EduRev, a Gurgaon-based ed-tech startup, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding in a Pre-Series A round from Pradeep Reddy Kamasan, who is part of Hyderabad Angels group.  The startup was looking to raise a $1 Mn round earlier in December.

Edurev was also part of Jaarvis Accelerator’s first batch in India.

Pradeep has joined EduRev as a strategic investor, to help EduRev obtain new customers across southern India. With the new funds, EduRev plans to introduce a new model that will help colleges in admitting new students. The model will compete closely with portals like Shiksha or Career360, but would have an edge with its core model of offering free things.

The company will also launch more free courses for major fields of education. Edurev also has an Android app which is currently in beta, with over 4000 downloads. It is also working on introducing tablets with EduRev’s technology to be used in the backend, which will be an alternative to buying school and college books in institutions.

“We want to build the largest educational network of the country. We want to make every field of education available for free online and monetise on the data,” said Kunaal Satija, Founder and CEO, EduRev. “There lies a huge gap between the online and offline ed-tech space,which is  helping institutions to shift their model from completely offline to online plus offline,” he added.

EduRev (abbreviation for Education Revolution) started its pilot operations in March last year and launched its portal officially in May. It is an educational network that connects students and teachers with courses and learning material, based on a crowd-sourced library. The team started with operations in Chandigarh, and is now operational in Pune, Haryana and New Delhi.

The startup has more than 40,000 students who have already joined the EduRev network platform containing over 100 courses and more than 70,000 documents, videos and tests. It also sells efficiency and management platforms to teachers and institutions to digitize their classrooms. To date, it has earned revenues of INR 14 Lakh and is currently working with 24 clients.

Some of the startups setting benchmarks in this industry include Simplilearn, Embibe, CultureAlley, Genius Teacher, Toppr, Upgrad, Vedantu and more. As per a report by Tracxn, over $9.86 Bn has been invested in ed-tech since 2006, of which one third of the amount was invested in 2015 alone. In 2016, the disclosed funding amount has already reached $85 Mn in this space, with recent $75 Mn funding in test preparation and tutoring portal Byju.

Several startups in India are utilising tools like cloud computing and advanced genomics, trying to change the education landscape of the country. According to Edustars survey, 61% of the companies in India have built mobile and tablet apps in the education space. 54% of them leverage the cloud for their startups while 32% use video technology. A satisfactory 32% of the edtech startups present in India are earning between Rs. 5 lakhs to Rs. 1 Crore per year and 25% of the startups are earning over Rs. 1 Crore Per Annum. However, the startups are still facing challenges such as elongated sales cycle, user adoption, lack of awareness, and more. But the overall scenario seems positive and it would be worth watching to see startups growth in this space with billion dollar fundings like in mobile and ecommerce space.