Gurugram-based edtech startup Sunstone Eduversity has raised INR 11.35 crore (Approximately $1.5 million) in a seed funding round led by Prime Venture Partners.
Other investors who participated in the round include LetsVenture, PS1 Ventures and Rajul Garg.
Founded by Ashish Munjal and Piyush Nangru in 2015, Sunstone Eduversity is an academic institution that aims at creating industry-ready professionals with unique pedagogy and technology-enabled education delivery. The company envisions in bringing about a paradigm shift in the present higher education system by equipping the students with various skill sets so that they are easily absorbed by the recruitment companies. Sunstone Eduversity also works closely with various corporates and corporate leaders to design the curriculum according to industry needs.
Sunstone Eduversity offers pay-after-placement higher education programs. The model is currently based on partnership with five colleges and private universities in three cities. It plans to partner with 10 more colleges soon. The company said that till date it has a 100% placement record with over 200 different recruitment companies empanelled with it.
The company said that the fresh capital will be used to scale up its technology-based curriculum to create industry-ready professionals. It also plans to expand into nine cities and enrol over 2000 students in 2020.
Speaking to a leading online media about the company and its business, Ashish Munjal, Co-founder of Sunstone Eduversity, said,
“Our business model focuses on producing industry-ready professionals who can start contributing to an organization’s success right at the start of their career. By bringing in the pay-after-placement model, we are making higher education accountable. This is the only higher education program where the success of the education provider is completely aligned with the student’s success.”
Sunstone Eduversity’s pay-after-placement model allows students to focus on completing the course rather than worry about financing their higher education. It helps students to upskill and reskill themselves by taking up higher education. The company charges INR 65K from students, at the time of enrolment, as registration fee for the two-year full-time program. But students can pay the fee on completion of the course and only after getting a job. Students can pay the fee in instalments. The startup also helps placed students get financing help for the fee.
Emphasizing greatly on the need for industry-ready professionals in India, Amit Somani, Managing Partner of Prime Venture Partners, said,
“Higher education in India has hardly seen any innovation whether in curriculum or in methodology in the last few decades. With one of the largest youth workforce in the world and rapidly evolving new-age jobs and businesses, there is a dire need for industry-ready professionals in India. Sunstone is addressing this with technology-led pedagogy and a highly attractive business model.”
With the number of new-age businesses growing every day, the needs and requirements of the companies at the workplace is also changing, requiring high-level domain knowledge and core competencies from the students. However, financing is always a major problem faced by many students in India. Sunstone Eduversity is addressing this issue through its pay-after-placement model.
