Edu-fintech startup, Financepeer, on April 20 announced that it has raised $31 million in Series B funding round led by US VC QED Investors and Mumbai-based Aavishkaar Capital.
The company plans to utilize the funds to enhance its technology platform and offerings, expand and strengthen its education-institution partnerships, and deepen its reach in rural areas to enable more students, especially the girl students, to get easy access to quality education, it said in a press statement.
The round of funding also saw participation from US-based edu-tech investor Ardent Ventures, DMI Sparkle Fund, DMI, 9Unicorn, LC Nueva AIF and Maxar VC.
Founded in 2017 by Rohit Gajbhiye, Sunit Gajbhiye, Naveesh Reddy and Debi Prasad Baral, Financepeer caters both offline and online education providers including pre-schools, K-12, colleges, universities, offline test prep, ed-tech, and skilling.
Speaking about the funding, Rohit Gajbhiye, CEO, Financepeer, said, “Financepeer has processed more than $100 million of fees on its platform and helped hundreds of thousands of students get quality education. In line with the company's vision for the next phase of growth, it is very important to join hands with sector-specific and the right set of leaders, partners and investors."
He further said, "Our mission is to bring revolution in the education space through neo banking and at the same time create an impact at the bottom of the pyramid, via increasing access to quality education. This mission is further strengthened and eased off with relevant industry stalwarts QED, Aavishkaar and Ardent Ventures joining us.”
Sandeep Patil, Partner & Head of Asia, a fintech-focused venture capital firm QED, said: “We are thrilled to back Rohit, Naveesh, Debi, Sunit and the team. FinancePeer's quest to leverage financial technology to deliver on important socio-economic and development objectives is more important today than ever. We were thrilled by the audacity of their vision, the energy, commitment and depth of the team, and the traction they are poised to drive in the marketplace. We can't wait to see what they will achieve next.”
Speaking about the funding, Sushma Kaushik, Partner, Aavishkaar Capital, said, “By investing in Financepeer, we are realizing our dream of building a financial ecosystem that would nurture people’s educational aspirations through technology across the emerging low- and middle-income population."
"Through our first investment from the new fund, we are excited to partner with Financepeer as they are servicing a large unmet need in the aspiring Indian edtech segment, creating a significant impact in Tier-2 and beyond cities. Also, we have realized that support via finance significantly improves access to education, especially for girl students wanting higher education. This has been validated by the large base of girl students in Financepeer’s network," he said.
The company said that there are over 362 million students in India, who spend more than $216 billion annually on education. The average Indian household spending on education and skilling has seen a significant increase over the last few years.
“However, access to credit from formal financial institutions eludes this segment. Financepeer offers innovative digital-enabled financing solutions through institutional partnerships to students seeking credit support for fee payment,” Rohit added.
Earlier, the company had partnered with more than 10,000 educational institutions with a Pan-India footprint, to deliver affordable fee financing solutions, Edu-tech content, and fee payment solutions.
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