Eduvanz, a fintech company specializing in education financing, has raised $5 million in a Series A funding round led by venture capital firm Sequoia Capital India.
The round also saw participation from the company’s existing investor Unitus Capital.
Founded in 2016 by Varun Chopra and Raheel Shah, Eduvanz is on a mission to make education and skilling universally accessible by providing easy, transparent, and speedy financial assistance using an innovative technology solution. It provides loans to students, self-employed and other individuals to enable higher enrollment and to help accelerate their careers.
Eduvanz provides loans in collaboration with educational institutions via a fully digitized end-to-end platform. It leverages parameters like social media scores, education scores as well as taking guardians or parents as guarantors, to enhance its underwriting process.
Speaking about the company and highlighting the need for formal skill training for the Indian workforce, Varun Chopra, Co-founder and CEO, Eduvanz, said in a statement,
“Over the next decade, our country will need skilled workforces trained in new technologies and new skills. By 2022, we need 700 million skilled workers. However, only 10% of the total workforce receives any formal skill training. By combining innovative student-centric loan solutions, robust risk-assessment with cutting-edge digital lending technology, Eduvanz is enabling higher enrollment for learners across colleges, universities, certification partners, institutes, and schools.”
The company said the newly infused funds will be utilized towards creating a seamless borrower experience with secure, scalable, innovative, and agile technologies, which include AI-based risk management, and easier collections, to support their lending journey. The Mumbai-based fintech company also plans to create new credit products and expand its reach to smaller towns in India.
Commenting on the funding, Ashish Agrawal, Principal, Sequoia Capital India, said,
“There is a large unmet credit need for education in India. Eduvanz is catering to this by building a differentiated lending business with exceptional credit quality. Their future employability-based underwriting approach will make education and skilling more accessible to accelerate a diverse range of careers.”
Eduvanz, which claims to have served over 10,000 borrowers and deployed more than Rs 150 crore since its inception, said that it aims to disburse Rs 400-500 crore in loans over the next two years. The fintech company has till date provided financial assistance to skill seekers across more than 240 cities and partnered with more than 300 institutes in the country.
