Mumbai-based Haygot Education Pvt Ltd which runs digital ed-tech startup Toppr.com, has acquired EasyPrep, an online entrance exam preparation platform, for an undisclosed amount, the company said on Thursday.
“Toppr’s focus has been on building great products and having EasyPrep team on board gives us more ammunition to execute our plans. This acquisition also helps us reinforce our dominant position as India’s no 1 exam prep platform,†said Zishaan Hayath, co-founder and CEO, Toppr.com.
Toppr was founded in 2013 by Zishaan Hayath (previously worked with Opera Solutions and ITC Ltd) and Hemanth Goteti (previously headed engineering at Futurebazaar.com and worked with Qlip Media, Synechron and Ubiquity Inc.). Before setting up Toppr, Hayath—who himself is an active investor having backed firms such as Housing.com and Olacabs.com—had also co-founded a phone commerce startup Chaupaati Bazaar which was acquired by Future Group in September 2010 and also runs an angel investment group called Powai Lake Ventures.
Toppr is a test preparation platform for engineering, medical and secondary schools students. The platform covers exams such as IIT JEE and BITSAT in engineering; NEET, AIIMS, AIPMT, AFMC, MT-CET and EAMCET in medical; and NTSE, NSO, NSTSE and KVPY, among others in the secondary school level. The fee starts at Rs 250 per month and can go up to Rs 6,900 per three years, depending on the course and duration selected. Toppr is also available on Android phones.
The company claims to have more than 40 per cent students enrolled from Tier II/III cities. It also claims that more than 1,50,000 students are using its programmes. It has grown to a team of over 100 members.
In May 2014, the firm had raised $2 million (Rs 12 crore) in seed funding from SAIF Partners and Helion Ventures.
“We felt that Toppr was heading in the right direction which we would have liked to achieve and joining forces with it enhances our capacity to serve more students†said Ankit Saraswat, co-founder, EasyPrep.
Jodhpur-based EasyPrep was founded in 2015 by IIT graduates, Vivek Sharma and Ankit Saraswat. Before setting up EasyPrep, Sharma co-founded EduX Solutions Pvt. Ltd and Saraswat co-founded Freedu Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
EasyPrep offers customised exam creation platform for schools and helps students prepare for competitive examinations.
It presently has a team of 6 IIT Jodhpur graduates.
Earlier this month, Singapore-based XSEED Education Pte acquired online learning management business of Pleolabs, an Indian education technology startup for an undisclosed amount.
In March 2015, Mumbai based ed-tech startup for competitive entrance test preparation, Embibe.com had acquired 100Marks, a student guidance platform for JEE main and advanced, in a cash plus stock deal.
The company said that the entrance exam preparation market for grade 12 students is valued at $8 billion which is growing at about 20 per cent every year.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)