Bangalore-based Aurus Network Pvt Ltd, the company behind SuperProfs.com, an online platform that connects students preparing for various competitive exams with professors, has secured Rs 18 crore (about $3 million) in its Series A round of funding from Kalaari Capital and IDG Ventures India. The funds will be used to add more courses to its platform, in addition to expanding operations across India.
Aurus Network had earlier raised an undisclosed amount in funding from Indian Angel Network.
Aurus Networks was founded in 2010 by IIT Kanpur alumni Piyush Agrawal and Sujeet Kumar. Agarwal is also a graduate of Stanford University (US) and had previously worked at Yahoo. Launched early this year, SuperProfs.com offers online courses for competitive exams like CA, CS, CMA and GATE. The platform connects students with professors by providing their live and recorded lectures via online video streaming. The platform is powered by a technology, which allows live transmission of HD quality videos at low bandwidth.
SuperProfs.com has partnered with professors from Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai for various competitive exams. The firm claims to have over 25,000 registered students.
"Besides tier 1 cities, we are increasingly witnessing a significant number of students from tier 2 and 3 towns, who earlier could not prepare well for such exams due to a lack of good teachers in their city, adopting online exam preparation at SuperProfs.com. We are happy to have Kalaari and IDG as our partners in our mission to make quality education accessible to the masses," said Agrawal.
"Our belief is that this platform will scale rapidly through the online delivery model with the mobile as the next frontier to conquer," said Karan Mohla, vice president of IDG Ventures.
"Online test prep market in India is projected to become a multi-billion dollar industry with over 15 million students preparing and appearing for various competitive exams annually. We’re confident that they will make a difference to millions of students in India and are excited to join them in this journey," said Sumit Jain, principal at Kalaari Capital.