Investors are still interested in early stage startups, although education technology businesses are currently facing a funding shortage. Edtech startup EdSARRTHI has raised funds to expand the company’s team and diversify its product offering.
EdSARRTHI, a provider of Mentorship for competitive exams such as UPSC CSE has secured its seed fund from several angel investors.
IIT Roorkee Graduate, Varun Jain, who founded the company says EdSARRTHI will use the money to diversify product offering and further expand its team. EdSarrthi began in September 2020, amid lockdown, when the Edtech sector was growing and investors were pouring money in. The firm was bootstrapped for 1.5 years and managed to acquire 7000 paid customers for their learning software. During this time, the firm has received over 1 lakh unique visitors to its online portal and app, with an average engagement time of 12 minutes.
The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) recently revealed the final results for the UPSC Civil Services test 2021, with 685 students making the merit list, 36 of them were selected through EdSarrthi. Six of their students were ranked in the top 50 in India, while nine were ranked in the top 100.
Varun Jain adds “It’s a significant accomplishment for us. We are focused on meeting the needs of our students, and I am optimistic that we will do better in the next years. The study content has increased considerably in the Online Education Era, causing a “Problem of Plenty for the Students.”
When a student has several sources to study from but is unable to choose the best one, this is referred to as a Problem of Plenty. It also refers to a circumstance in which pupils gather a large amount of information but are unsure how to use it in exams. This is precisely the issue that EdSarrthi is addressing with its mentorship initiative. Recently, the Edtech sector has faced a profitability crisis, which has resulted in employee layoffs among the top Edtech businesses.
Co-Founder Prafful Agarwal, MBA from HULT, San Francisco, says, “The company has had a Positive Cash Flow in the past 1.5 years and now has raised the cash to further scale up the operations. We are here to establish a sustainable company that meets the expectations of its investors, employees, and customers.”
EdSARRTHI intends to transition to a hybrid model with the establishment of offline coaching facilities run by EdSARRTHI Mentors.
Prafful Agarwal, argues, “The problem of plenty will increase with the expansion of content-based Edtech companies. In the near future, we intend to offer our services in State PCS and other competitive tests.” The startup has also announced its intention to form alliances with numerous public and private organisations. In the case of public institutions, the emphasis is on delivering quality mentoring in remote locations, but in the case of private institutions, the emphasis is on mentoring at a young age.
