Gurugram, September 8, 2021 - CollegeDekho, India’s largest college admissions and education services platform has raised USD $26.5 million (~INR 200 Crores) in an ongoing (and oversubscribed) series B funding round led by Winter Capital Partners, ETS Strategic Capital - the private equity investments arm of ETS (creator of the TOEFL®️ and GRE®️ tests), Calega and existing investor Man Capital and Rajeev Chaba. The company had last raised USD $8 million in May 2019.
With this funding round, the company plans to further improve its offerings for students and colleges, increase its investment in product & technology, expand internationally and grow new verticals like Ed-Fin-Tech and Student Accommodation.
With an aim to institutionalize higher-ed counselling, CollegeDekho’s Ed-Tech platform helps connect prospective students with colleges using its proprietary Technology and its AI based conversation bot. CollegeDekho owns India’s largest Common Application Form (CAF) platform which enables a student to apply to multiple colleges with a single click. For Study Abroad students, CollegeDekho offers a full range of services from Profile Building, Test Preparation, to Application Assistance, University Selection and Visa Assistance. CollegeDekho has recently launched innovative 0% EMI based education financing and insurance products to enable more and more students to get access to an education of their choice. The platform helps colleges by making their admissions more efficient and predictable.
Ruchir Arora, Founder & CEO – CollegeDekho, said “CollegeDekho is at an exciting phase of growth in its mission to connect students and colleges across geographies. We welcome Winter Capital, ETS and Calega to the CollegeDekho family and thank Man Capital and Rajeev Chaba for their continued trust in us. Their global experience and precious insights in Ed-Tech shall be invaluable in our growth journey. The tremendous response we are seeing from students, parents and colleges continues to energise us to build world class products and services for them. All of this would not have been possible without the passion and commitment of the CollegeDekho family.
With this fund raise, we plan to invest in making our products and services even more lovable for our students and colleges, as well as expand into new geographies and business verticals.”
Anton Farlenkov, Managing Director at Winter Capital Advisors, says “We are excited to be making a debut in India with an investment in CollegeDekho - one of the fastest-growing education service providers in India, with an exceptional traffic, currently estimated at 1.5 million visits per month. India has about 52,000 colleges, of which around 66 percent are private educational institutions. We believe that India’s Ed-Tech industry is poised to reach $10 billion in size in the next 5-10 years, compared to the current market size of about $2.5 billion. We see this investment as promising and well aligned with our strategy to expand our investment portfolio via dynamic, high-quality assets.”
“We continue to identify and invest in companies both domestically and internationally whose missions and long-term vision align with that of ETS,” said Ralph Taylor-Smith, Managing Director of ETS Strategic Capital.
“We’re pleased to further expand the ETS portfolio with this investment in service of the organization and focus on making equitable education available to all learners at all stages, globally.” concluded Ralph
Chairman of Man Capital, Mr. Mohamed Mansour, says “We are glad to have partnered with CollegeDekho’s founders since day one. We continue to believe and support the company’s vision. CollegeDekho is at the forefront of a rapidly expanding and growing Ed-Tech market in India. In addition to the exponential growth in college admission and wider India Ed-Tech market, we are also seeing a rise in integrated solutions for college students across the globe. We believe that CollegeDekho is very well positioned to expand its services and reach to become a leading global player over the coming years.”
This Series B funding round has been advised by IBIS Capital, a specialist investment and corporate finance advisory group focused on the global media & education and by Cilix Capital, an international investment banking firm that helps companies as well as institutional investors with fundraises and M&A.
About Winter Capital Partners (WCP) Investment Funds (www.wintercapital.com)
With total assets under management exceeding $1 billion, Winter Capital Partners (WCP) investment funds focus on private equity and venture capital investments globally. The funds invest in fast-growing technology companies in a number of selected verticals: healthcare, education, financial and consumer services.
About ETS Strategic Capital (www.ets.capital)
ETS Strategic Capital serves as the private equity investment and M&A execution arm for ETS, its subsidiaries and its partners, sourcing transactions within both the domestic United States and internationally. The unit partners with the broader Ed-Tech ecosystem to identify and execute deals, coordinate with other ETS business units to identify opportunities and needs, network with professional services firms with education expertise, and build direct relationships with businesses internationally — especially within Europe, Asia Pacific, Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Middle East & Africa (MENA) regions. ETS Strategic Capital targets private equity investments that are typically in Series B, C or later; acquisitions that are middle-market in scale; and growth partnerships that may involve joint ventures (JVs), channel-affiliate or distribution agreements, Intellectual Property (IP) licensing and technology-transfer relationships.
About ETS (www.ets.org)
At ETS, we advance quality and equity in education for people worldwide by creating assessments based on rigorous research. ETS serves individuals, educational institutions, and government agencies by providing customized solutions for teacher certification, English language learning, and elementary, secondary and postsecondary education, and by conducting education research, analysis and policy studies. Founded as a non-profit in 1947, ETS develops, administers and scores more than 50 million tests annually — including the TOEFL®️ and TOEIC®️ tests, the GRE®️ tests and The Praxis Series®️ assessments — in more than 180 countries, at over 9,000 locations worldwide.
About Man Capital (www.man-capital.com)
Man Capital is the investment arm of the Mansour Group, a global, family-owned conglomerate with over 60,000 employees, a presence in more than 100 countries and total revenues exceeding $7.5 billion. Its businesses operate across a large range of sectors including automotive, banking, consumer goods, education, healthcare, machinery & equipment, media, oil & gas, real estate, technology, and transport and logistics.
About CollegeDekho (www.collegedekho.com)
CollegeDekho (Girnarsoft Education Services Pvt. Ltd.) is India’s largest Ed-Tech platform for higher education services. Since its inception in 2015, CollegeDekho has counselled more than 2 million students and has helped over 750 colleges with their student recruitments. With more than 100 million sessions on its website in 2020, CollegeDekho is also proud of owning India’s largest common application form platform (CAF) which has serviced more than half a million applications by 2020. CollegeDekho also offers a full range of Study Abroad services from discovery to admission. The latest introduction of Ed-Fin-Tech offerings are powered by a simple vision to help each student get access to higher education of their choice.
