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Quizzing start-up secures $1 million in seed funding inspite of slowdown of investment in edtech start-ups
Lucknow-based education startup EduAce Services wants to encourage quizzing as an active form of learning that can continue through grade VIII and beyond. The company has raised $1 million (about Rs 6.6 crore) in seed funding from Foxconn-backed MoMagic. Founder and CEO Gaurava Yadav said he plans t
Most competitive exams that students appear for after class XII have current affairs as a major chunk of the questions and yet General Knowledge is a part of the school curriculums till class VIII only in CBSE and ICSE schools. Lucknow-based education start-up EduAce Services wants to change that and bring in quizzing as an active form of learning that can continue through grade VIII and beyond.
Though start-up funding in the education space has been slow, EduAce has raised $1 million (about Rs 6.6 crore) in seed funding from Foxconn-backed MoMagic. Founder and CEO Gaurava Yadav said he plans to use the funds to add more learning programs and expand its operations in the country.
"Right now, we have a presence in 3 states and 25 cities, touching about 2,500 schools. The aim is to reach out to 5,000 schools across 35 cities and 10 states in the next one year," he said. He added that the focus of the company was tier II and III cities more as quizzing opportunities are often few in these places. Yadav, himself belonging to Jhansi says that quizzing competitions never came to our city, leaving us with no other option but to go to a bigger town like Lucknow for feeding this passion. I wanted to make these aspirations accessible to children in Tier II cities.
Founded in 2012, EduAce Services uses the quizzing format of education and has 'School Quiz League – Pratibha Ki Khoj' as a flagship programme which drives revenue. According to Yadav, the first year revenue target is Rs 7.5 crore.
The key offering of EduAce is the GK and Quizzing Aptitude Test (G-QAT), an offering for school students, who are segregated according to difficulty levels, from junior (Class VI to IX) to senior sections (Class X to XII). It includes an aptitude assessment test, while providing individual learning modules to students.
G-QAT is the cash cow of the company so far as it sees 800 to 1000 students take it up from the existing network of 125 schools. At Rs 250 per student, the module is an active revenue generator. The company also offers the ‘kickstarter workshop’ for the top percentile of quizzing talent from every school with similar pricing to G-QAT’s. This module provides training to compete for national competitions.
The GURU module is aimed for teachers to nurture their GK acumen, so that they can help foster the same skill and spirit in their students. The per teacher costing for the module is Rs. 1500 and is taken in batches of 50 teachers each.
That’s not all, the company has a third revenue stream, Gaurava’s book that provides content for classroom quizzing.
"This association will greatly benefit the overall school learning in India at large, enabling the future generation of India to be future ready," MoMagic founder and CEO Arun Gupta had to say.
This strategic partnership will capitalise Momagic’s major play in mobile to equip EduAce with the skills to put together tech solutions. The firm plans to launch an app for tablets for school children in a huge way the next year. Through this platform, EduAce plans to streamline all learning modules, while providing a rank and a percentile to the talent for their partner institutions.