With More Than 55K Students Benefited Through Its Platform, This Ed-tech Startup For Career Counselling Gets Funded

iDreamCareer (iDC), a Delhi-based Ed-tech startup, has raised an undisclosed amount of angel funding through ah! Ventures. The angels from ah! Ventures together with angel investors Vivek Joshi, Mohit Satyanand, Indian Designs Group and others partnered to fund the startup. Earlier in 2014, iDC had also raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from G.K Sinha, ex-Director at PepsiCo.

Abhijeet Kumar, Co-founder of ah! Ventures said, “EdTech has always been an interesting area for us and iDreamCareer is really disrupting the space of career and higher education planning through a combination of a hard working team, innovative & proven business model, strong revenue pipeline and use of next generation technology. Their global footprint makes them a leader in this space. This deal was concluded through the private equity investment platform, CLUB ah!.

Do what you love and you shall succeed, but does Indian students get that choice? Indians are prone to choose their careers under the influence of friends and family members, which limits down the career choices to only the ones that  their social circle  approves. But isn’t the career all about our capabilities and potentials.

Why there is so much confusion about the right career choice? The answer is simple – lack of proper counseling and information portals.

Realizing these travails of Indian students, Ayush Bansal and Pravesh Dudani co-founded   iDreamCareer.com in 2013. iDC has developed a 3S framework program – “Structured, Scientific & Scalable”, which is currently being used by students in India, Middle East & East Africa. Over the last year and a half, more than 55,000 students have benefitted through their portal.

Vivek Joshi, lead investor said “iDreamCareer is rightly placed in the current educational context where plethora of courses are available to students, making it difficult for them to choose the right course and hence a career. Ayush and Pravesh are very committed towards making a difference by helping students make better career decisions.”

The Idea

Talking of the idea behind iDreamCareer, Ayush Bansal, co-founder iDreamCareer said, “Our vision is to build future proof career for students through unbiased and credible career planning programs. In the business where trust is the key element, our focus has been on providing quality career planning service to students and parents that empowers them for taking informed career decisions.”

He also added, “With iDC, we aim to create a trustable brand for career planning, which is unbiased and work uniquely for each student’s interest and potential.”

How It Works

iDC Career planning Program has three major elements:

1. Self Assessment: Company has built its own proprietary Career Assessment tool to assess the aptitude of students from 9th to 12th class. This tool creates a 16 page personal report to each applicant.
2. One-on-one mentoring: Following to the assessment report, students are connected to mentors through telephonic or skype interactions. Company also has provisions for face to face interaction at their 7 retail centers. Mentors are broadly present under three categories: College alumni/current students, Psychologists and Career professionals.
3. Explore Colleges: Ensue, the counselling students get access to detailed listing of college options.

Revenue Model

The revenue is generated directly from the students and not from any college or school. There are four available plans – Inform, Explore, Aspire. and Study Overseas; ranging from INR 2,499 to INR 44,999.

Quick Facts

• 55,000 Students used the service in past Financial Year
• 20% customers upgrade the basic plan
• Currently it is operational in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kanpur,Mumbai,Delhi and Siliguri
• The startup is currently working with a team 15 and has 220 mentors on its platform

Tackling the challenges

The only challenge that iDC face is the resistance of parents towards career counselling. Ayush Bansal says, “ There is a need to educate people about the need of career counselling.” He also added, “For the same reason, we have been conducting 16-17 seminars in various cities, schools and corporate offices to make people realise the need of proper career planning.”

Competition

Career360, Careerfunda, YoungBuzz, SarvGyaan and many other startups operate in the same space of career counselling. However, Ayush Bansal, do not see these companies as a threat to iDC, stating that “our USP lie in the customisable career planning which works uniquely for every student.”

Giving an investors’ perspective, Harshad Lahoti, Founder & CEO of ah! Ventures, said, “iDreamCareer has demonstrated their ability to disrupt the market using their unique customized career planning program rather than competitors’ plain vanilla assessment reports created using online aptitude tests. Tech is undoubtedly used as an enabler for automation of content and the assessment process – but iDC’s mix of online and offline models of career planning through 1-on-1 sessions using their retail offices and telephonic interviews, gives a more holistic approach.”

He further added, “The career planning sector for high school students in India is estimated to be over USD 1.5 billion and iDC is perfectly positioned to target and dominate a majority of it. We at ah! look forward to partnering iDC in their next growth phase”

The current investment round will be utilized to upgrade product line with addition of information alert tools, college application system, content upgradation etc. Additionally funds will also be utilized in sales & marketing to grow our business in new geographies across India & Middle East & also to improve our service delivery system.

Mumbai based, ah! Ventures brings together promising businesses and investors by creating wealth creation opportunities for both. It was founded by Harshad Lakhotia and Abhijeet Kumar in 2010. A few startups that have raised funding via ah! Ventures’ network include Harness Handitouch, Entropy Innovation,  LogicRoots, Bluegape and  iTraveller among others. It is in process of closing two more deals in the coming time.