Edutech start-up Prozo.com aims to become 'Google' of education sector Prozo strives to provide competitive exam aspirants the best of educational resources.
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Prozo.com, an aggregator and marketplace for all types of exam preparation content, has announced to secure a seed funding of Rs. 1.37 crore from a group of investors. A McKinsey & Company Director has participated in this round along with eminent personalities like – Nalin Jain, President and CEO of GE Transportation & Aviation, South Asia; Shomil Pant, Head Strategy at Wockhardt Pharmaceuticals; and few more angel investors.
The venture plans to utilise this fund for talent acquisition, marketing and mobile app development. Commenting on the same line, Ashvini Jakhar, Founder and Chief Idealist, Prozo.com said, "Smartphone penetration among our target segment (students) is very high. Hence, it is a natural next step for us to engage them through mobile application."
Inception
Jakhar, an alumnus of ISB and McKinsey & Company, and Jerry Jose, an alumnus of KPMG, Goldman Sachs and HEC Paris is the brain behind Prozo.com. The core idea is to solve the pain points that he personally faced while preparing for some of the most competitive exams. "Students appearing in highly competitive exams such as CAT, GMAT, Medical, Engineering, etc., face a lot of challenges around selection of right resources and finding personal mentors. We are solving these pain points through Prozo," said Jakhar.
Envisioned to be a search engine of education space, Prozo strives to provide competitive exam aspirants with the best of resources. Students can buy all kinds of resources at one place – be it books, e-learning content, coaching material or personal notes.
Prozo.com, which is owned and operated by Global Edu4Share Private Limited, claims that more than 40 leading content providers in this space such as Aakash Institute, CrackVerbal, Brilliant Tutorials, Plancess, learnpedia, Meritnation, Toppr.com etc., are already selling through Prozo's platform. Further, more than 250 mentors from premier institutes have enrolled on their platform to help mentees succeed.
The USP
What makes Prozo.com unique in its space is its in-class advisory and counseling technique. Aspirants can seek guidance through peer-to-peer mentorship programs provided by students, who have cleared these exams very recently. In-built ratings and review mechanism and mentors-only blogs are unique ways through which students can find best resources for themselves.
Jakhar and his team are working diligently on the product and spreading awareness about it in markets big and small. The team is excited to scale up the idea so that it reaches aspiring youth.
Sector overview
Apart from Prozo.com, many other start-ups have been recently backed by investors in the education technology space. Last week, Delhi-based education technology firm Wincourse acquired 85 per cent stake in Mappr for an undisclosed amount. Similarly, US-based Coursera Inc secured $49.5 million in the first closing of Series C funding from New Enterprise Associates, Times Internet and others investors. Later in June, Bangalore-based Suphalaam Technologies, which owns and operates online education marketplace CAKART.in, had raised an undisclosed amount of funding.
