Education Supplies Provider Fastudent Raises Pre-Series A Funding

Noida-based education supplies marketplace Fastudent has raised an undisclosed amount of Pre-Series A funding from a group of investors.

Kanwaljit Sing of Fireside Ventures; Ajay Lakhotia, former Vertex Venture Director; Pavan Ongole, former SoftBank Director; and Ashish Gupta, Trustee Ashoka University and former COO of eValueServe participated in this round.

Commenting on the funding, Kanwaljit Singh, founder Fireside Ventures, said: “Fastudent has tapped into a consumer need for school-endorsed education supplies – coupled with the convenience of ecommerce deliveries. The young and dynamic team intends to service the education fraternity like never before by creating a highly personalised brand experience for its audience.”

Fastudent will utilise this round of funding to expand into Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune etc., and strengthen its technology platform.

Founded by Gaurav Barman and Geetanjali Khanna, Fastudent provides education supplies by partnering with education institutes and helping them create their own customised virtual shops offering school approved products. It currently offers this service to schools in Delhi NCR only.

It has about 32 categories including books, stationery, digital learning, branded merchandise, sports, uniforms, shoes, and more. It claims to have an educational catalogue on 1,00,000+ products, spanning across 500 brands.

According to a company statement, Fastudent has partnered with more than 200 education institutes. The company runs end-to-end operations to support the transactions received on these stores from order receipt till the last-mile delivery. Fastudent has about 1.2 Mn students on its platform and has processed more than 90,000 orders till date.

Earlier in November 2015 it raised an undisclosed amount of Seed funding led by Ashish Gupta, founder & trustee of Ashoka University.

In March 2016, Delhi-based SchoolKart, an online marketplace for school products  raised $300K from 12 angel investors. In May 2016 promoters of Mumbai-based publishing firm Navneet Education Ltd made a strategic investment in SchoolWear.in, an online marketplace to sell school uniforms and supplies. Other startups that cater to the children-related sector are Hopscotch, Firstcry, MyCity4Kids, among others