Eduvanz, a Mumbai-based fintech company that enables students to ‘study now and pay later’ at zero interest rates, has acquired personalized career mentoring startup Klarity.
The financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.
Klarity is a one-on-one video-based mentoring platform that connects students with professionals in their area of interest. Founded by Manmeet Singh Akali, Klarity’s mentorship program runs across a span of two years and primarily focuses on post-graduate students. The startup realized that while most post-graduate programs ask the students to decide on their specializations in the second year, the students often get confused about their prospects and job roles that will be on offer.
Klarity is on a mission to address this problem. Its program involves analytics-driven assessments, specialization-wise market realities workshops that cover job-roles, followed by one-on-one mentorship meetings with industry professionals.
Commenting on the acquisition, Varun Chopra, Co-founder and CEO, Eduvanz, said in a statement,
“The acquisition of Klarity has helped Eduvanz reach out to a network of passionate industry mentors and more than 300 educational institutes. Klarity has impacted more than 5,000 careers via one-on-one mentoring and the team can help Eduvanz users not only finance their courses but also get help in choosing the right course.”
Eduvanz is a technology-enabled non-banking finance company (NBFC), co-founded by Varun Chopra and Raheel Shah in 2016, that aims to change the way the nation pays for education by enabling learners to apply for low-cost loans via its digital platform. The education-focused company is on a mission to make education and skilling universally accessible by providing easy, transparent, and speedy financial assistance using innovative technology solution and allowing users to pay back the loans at no interest in small pocket-friendly monthly installments instead of upfront annual fees.
Manmeet Singh Akali, Founder and CEO, Klarity, also commented on the new partnership in a statement saying,
“Joining forces with Eduvanz will help us amplify our reach, and intensify the impact of our work in the careers of students with whom we are working. We are equipped with a mentor network of more than 200 industry experts from some of the best companies of the world, such as the Big Four consulting firms, Amazon, JP Morgan, and Uber, who graduated from institutes such as the IIMs, Carnegie Melon, Georgia Tech, and so on. Our biggest strength is the motivation of these mentors to spare a few hours on weekends just to see the impact that their knowledge and experience can have on somebody else’s career.”
Eduvanz assesses applicants using a proprietary AI-based algorithm at the backend. The company claims to have worked with over 15,000 students and partnered with more than 350 institutes. It currently has its presence in more than 250 cities in India and claims to have disbursed over Rs 200 crore.
Meanwhile, the acquisition comes around three months after the Mumbai-based company had raised $5 million in a Series A funding round led by venture capital firm Sequoia Capital with participation from early-stage VC firm and existing investor Unitus Ventures.
