Pay After Placement Edtech Startup Sunstone Eduversity Raises INR 24 Cr In Series A Funding The Series A funding round was led by early-stage investor Saama Capital along with participation from Ashish Gupta of Helion Advisors, Pankaj Bansal of PeopleStrong and existing investors Prime Venture Partners, Rajul Garg and Purvi Capital
By Prabhjeet Bhatla •
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Edtech startup Sunstone Eduversity has raised INR 24 crore in Series A funding round led by early-stage investor Saama Capital.
The round also saw participation from Ashish Gupta, managing director of Helion Advisors, Pankaj Bansal, co-founder and chief executive officer of PeopleStrong along with existing investors Prime Venture Partners, Rajul Garg and Purvi Capital.
Founded by IMT alumni Ashish Munjal and Piyush Nangru, Sunstone Eduversity offers Pay after Placement—program fees paid only upon successful placement with a company—higher education programs in partnership with several colleges and private universities. The company claims to work closely with corporates to develop industry ready specializations, such as BFSI, logistics, sales management and digital marketing.
"Sunstone Eduversity is fixing the problem of large scale skill gaps in students by adopting one simple principle, accountability. By collecting fees only after our students get jobs, we make sure that all the cogs in our system are working towards the success of our students," said Ashish Munjal, co-founder, Sunstone Eduversity.
The company has so far partnered with eight institutions in six cities and claims to have secured 100 per cent placements for its 2018-20 batch, with some of the prominent recruiters being Axis Bank, HDFC, WNS, Genpact, Amazon, TCS, Karvy, Byjus, Reliance Retail, PolicyBazaar and Swiggy. Further, it generated over 450 internship offers for the batch of 2019-21 even during the pandemic.
"One of the challenges faced by freshers is the lack of industry-relevant skills that reduce their chances of getting hired by reputed companies. We focus on imparting practical skills training instead of outdated theory and remote learning methods," said Munjal.
The Bengaluru-headquartered company plans to use the fresh capital to strengthen its efforts in creating industry-ready professionals and building its network of colleges across multiple cities while investing in its technology platform, hiring and curriculum. It aims to partner with 20 institutions in 15 cities by July 202.
Commenting on the investment, Kiranbir Nag, partner at Saama Capital said, "Increasingly, the need for education to be outcome-oriented is dominating the minds of both students and the industry. With its technology-focused, data-centric approach and alignment with the students, we believe Sunstone is well placed to bring about a shift in the present higher education system by equipping the students with the latest tools that would make them ready for real-world job opportunities. We are excited to partner with the founders and other investors of Sunstone and believe that the company's vision has the potential for tremendous impact."
