Marking its second investment in a day, Yuvraj Singh’s YouWeCan Ventures, along with Holostik Group’s United Finsec (family office arm) and 500 Startups have invested $1 Million into Edukart, an online education marletplace which acts as an aggregator for various courses offered by India’s famed coaching centres, has secured a $1 Million seed round.
Existing investors including PayTm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Manish Kheterpal (Ex Director of Providence Equity Partners), Amit Patni and Arihant Patni of Patni family, and Stanford Business School’s alumni angels have also participated in the current round.
This fresh capital infusion will be primarily deployed for further upgrading the marketplace platform, increasing course portfolio and strengthening marketing efforts.
Founded in 2011 by Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Ishan Gupta and Mayank Gupta, EduKart is an online platform for enrolment into online and distance degree, diploma and certificate courses across various Indian coaching centres and institutions. While quite a lot of ed-tech startups have come up in India, providing self-branded courses and material, EduKart works as more of an aggregator, listing courses from its partner institutions.
Students can apply to online, distance and correspondence degree and diploma courses like MBA, Executive MBA, PGDM, MCA, M.Sc. IT, MA, MCom, BBA, BCA, BA, BCom and B.Sc. IT.
Talking about his investment into EduKart, Yuvraj Singh says,
I’m really excited to be a part of the EduKart journey. I have always believed that following your passion is very important in life. At the same time, a focus on education is also a must in today’s cut throat competitive environment. EduKart can really become your trusted partner in making the right choices
EduKart has already roped in some top tier names in both coaching (Vidyamandir, Aakash, Jamboree, Toppr) and educational institutions (Indian School of Business, Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Bharati Vidyapeeth University) to become a part of its platform.
EduKart has partnered with more than 90 course across the country providers to promote and drive enrollments in more than 2000 courses in K12, entrance coaching, degrees, diplomas, short courses and industry relevant certifications through the marketplace.
It now aims to to drive gross enrollment sales of over $100Mn for its course providers, by enrolling 100,000+ students annually in the coming three years. Till now, the company has raised $2 million in three funding round from five investors.
India’s education sector is currently pegged at over US $60 Billion, and that too, at a time when education continues to deceive a lot of rural population. Approximately 50% of that figure is in higher education sector, 40% in K12 sector and 10% in coaching, skilling and other non-formal areas.
Pankaj Jain from 500 startups explains how a startup such as Edukart becomes all the more relevant in today’s scenario,
Education spending is on the rise among the tech savvy Indian middle class. I believe that the online distribution of education products and services will have significant growth in the coming years. The highly effective EduKart.com team is ideally positioned to execute on this opportunity with a very strong course portfolio and mindshare amongst prospective students
