Schoolguru plans global, seeks to improve digital platform after Rs 20 cr funding

Schoolguru Eduserve, a Mumbai-based academic and technology services organisation, has raised Rs 20 crore in Series A funding from the family offices of a few HNI investors in India and USA.  The funds will be invested in the enhancement of the technology platform to provide an improved learning experience to students and also increase the number of universities and students. Started in 2012 by Shantanu Rooj, Ravi Rangan and Anil Bhat to help universities offer e-learning services to their students, the start-up currently services 12 Indian government universities and helps them manage their Online Course Delivery Platforms. The company, which claims to be the only service provider in the distance education space, plans to enhance its content library, consisting of a large number of video lectures created with the help of professors and academicians in India and abroad. This is to ensure customised, syllabus based content development for the universities in English and also in the vernacular medium. Currently, Schoolguru provides education material in nine vernacular languages. Shantanu Rooj, CEO and co-founder, Schoolguru said the funding would allow the company to improvise technology. “We also plan to offer services of our platform not only to our distance learning students but also to students enrolling for traditional classroom education.” Business strategy To increase its footprint, Schoolguru is planning to associate with 30 Indian universities across all major states and target over a million students from the current 1.5 lakh students in the next couple of years to enroll for the e-learning enabled programs in India. The company helps universities deliver high quality technology powered courses, using its powerful and hybrid mobile platform thereby eliminating the need for a computer and a high-speed Internet connection for the students. Using the platform, students from even remote areas of the country will be able to learn online for their degrees and diplomas on their smartphones. “Since we are in the know of a student’s strength and weakness, we are planning to provide value-added services so that students can get coaching in subjects that they find difficult. Besides coaching, we are also planning to offer classes for specialisations and career counseling, too. For instance, we could offer CA coaching classes for B.Com students,” said Rooj. In addition to their India expansion plans, the venture has plans to expand internationally and extend the services of its managed platform to the emerging nations. The company has been approached by several universities from South East Asia and African countries to offer their platform to universities in those countries, said Rooj. No competition The company’s revenues for 2015 was around Rs 4.5 crore and expects it to go up to Rs 18-20 crore next fiscal after its expansion plans. The market for online education is huge. With an estimated number of 30 million students entering Universities annually and growing at a CAGR of 10-12 percent year on year, the market size is estimated to be $40 billion. As of now, the company says it has no competition and are trying to consolidate its early advantage position in the market. “There is space for 3-4 large players here,” said Rooj.