Exprto, India’s largest experience sharing and mentorship network for students, has raised Rs 5 crores in a seed round led by GSF and Angel List USA; it also had Agility Ventures, Lets Venture, and Supermorpheus participating in it. Agility Ventures is a start-up investing platform that shares a passion for nurturing and investing in early-stage businesses and technology that are transforming the supply chain. The funding round also saw unicorn founders and angel investors participating in it, which included Rishabh Karwa (Go Mechanic), Rahul Jaimini (Swiggy), Sanka Aravind (Rapido), Rajesh Yabaji(Blackbuck), Vikas Bagaria(Pee Safe), Rahul Maroli(Zee5), Nitish MitterSain (Nazara Technologies), Dinesh Gulati (India Mart), Deep Gupta, Sahil Mahaldar and Archana Priyadarshini among others.
Varun Richharia, co-founder of Exprto, stated that the edtech start-up is going after the big whitespace opportunity, which is untapped in India. He added, “The total market opportunity for ‘Mentorship as a Service’ (MAAS) in India alone is $11 billion, with $6 billion in the test prep segment only.” That is where we will create coalescence and a massive success network within the Indian student community. The evolution of Exprto continues to build on the belief that every mentor’s voice can transform and accelerate people’s careers immensely, and our platform provides them with an entirely new, accessible, and engaging way to do so. The company offers mentorship services that vary in duration between 1 to 12 months. Currently, the platform offers 1-on-1 as well as cohort-based group mentorship sessions. Based on the stage of preparation that the aspirants are at, each service is personalised using their proprietary AI/ML profile-matching tech.
Rajan Chaudhary, co-founder of Exprto, feels that the company’s business model fills the gap in mentorship issues in the student community. He explained, “The Indian edtech market is primarily focused on opportunities for better teaching methodology and academic content.” Despite the real advantages that such platforms have brought to students, they still struggle to achieve their exam-related objectives. These include strategies for preparation, revision, and guidance that they mostly get from senior students or online platforms like Quora or YouTube. There is no structured approach to address the mentorship issue, but there is clear evidence of a large market gap and the stakes are very real.”