NE BUSINESS BUREAU
NEW DELHI, JUNE 11
Edtech platform Exprto on Friday announced that it has raised Rs 5 crores in a seed round led by GSF and Angel List USA; it also had Agility Ventures, Lets Venture, and Supermorpheus participating in it.
Agility Ventures is a start-up investing platform that shares a passion for nurturing and investing in early-stage businesses and technology that are transforming the supply chain. The funding-round also saw unicorn founders and angel investors participating in it, which included Rishabh Karwa (Go Mechanic), Rahul Jaimini (Swiggy), Sanka Aravind (Rapido), Rajesh Yabaji(Blackbuck), Vikas Bagaria(Pee Safe), Rahul Maroli(Zee5), Nitish MitterSain (Nazara Technologies), Dinesh Gulati (India Mart), Deep Gupta, Sahil Mahaldar and Archana Priyadarshini among others.
- Funds raised by the education technology start-up will be used to improve overall product service, accelerate growth and build new technologies
- The total market opportunity for ‘Mentorship as a Service’ (MAAS) in India alone is $11 billion, with $6 billion in the test prep segment only: Varun Richharia, co-founder of Exprto
- The investors include Rishabh Karwa (Go Mechanic), Rahul Jaimini (Swiggy), Sanka Aravind (Rapido), Rajesh Yabaji(Blackbuck), Vikas Bagaria(Pee Safe), Rahul Maroli(Zee5), Nitish Mitter Sain (Nazara Technologies), Dinesh Gulati (India Mart), Deep Gupta, Sahil Mahaldar and Archana Priyadarshini.
- Exprto currently has over 1,100 mentors from top Indian colleges on its platform
Varun Richharia, co-founder of Exprto, stated that the edtech start-up is going after the big whitespace opportunity which is untapped in India.
He added, “The total market opportunity for ‘Mentorship as a Service’ (MAAS) in India alone is $11 billion, with $6 billion in the test prep segment only. That’s where we will create coalescence and a massive success network within the Indian student community.The evolution of Exprto continues to build on the belief that every mentor’s voice can transform and accelerate people’s career immensely, and our platform provides them with an entirely new, accessible and engaging way to do so”
The company offers mentorship services that vary in duration between 1 to 12 months range. Currently the platform offers 1-on-1 as well as cohort-based group mentorship sessions. Based on the stage of preparation that the aspirants are at, each service is personalised using their proprietary AI/ML profile-matching tech.
Rajan Chaudhary, co-founder of Exprto, feels that the company’s business model fills the gap of mentorship issues in the student community. He explained, “The Indian edtech market is primarily focused on opportunities for better teaching methodology and academic content. Despite the real advantages that such platforms have brought to students, they still struggle to achieve their exam-related objectives. These include strategies for preparation, revision, and guidance that they mostly get from senior students or from online platforms like Quora/YouTube. There is no structured approach to address the mentorship issue, but there is a clear evidence of a large market gap and the stakes are very real.”
Exprto, in the last eight months, has seen a staggering increase in gross merchandise value (GMV) of more than 23X, as well as over 18X growth in sessions of over 1 million+ minutes of mentorship. It now plans to refine the overall product and accelerate its growth by buildinga stronger team and technology with the newly-acquired funds. Product offerings will also be launched for the new market segments.
While giving reasons for funding Exprto, Rajesh Sawhney, Founder and CEO of GSF, said, “GSF is delighted to back Exprto, a fast-growing mentoring platform. Its unique business model of ‘MaaS – mentoring as a service’ is well-suited to meet the requirements of millions of aspirational students. Besides, Exprto’s founders, Varun and Rajan, are exceptional leaders and have a deep commitment committed to building a sustainable and innovative edtech platform.”
Talking about his association with edtech start-up, Dhianu Das, co-founder of Agility Ventures, said, “Exprto distinguishes itself from other edtech companies by focusing solely on an underserved market: providing high-quality mentorship to students, which is required by four out of every five students in India.”
Exprto currently has over 1,100 mentors from top Indian colleges on its platform, it plans to onboard over 10,000 new mentors in the coming months and expand into other major competitive exam segments in India.
