GrayQuest Education Finance Pvt Ltd, a financial-technology company focussed on education fees, has raised $1.2 million (Rs 9 crore) in a pre-Series A funding exercise.
The round in Mumbai-based GrayQuest has been led by UAE-based Foundation Holdings, a multi-family office investment firm which focusses on education and health.
Last month, Foundation Holdings led a Rs 350 crore (around $46 million) Series D funding round in Toppr Technologies Pvt Ltd, which operates a test-preparation platform for engineering, medical and secondary school students.
Others that participated in the round include the Mahansaria Family Office, Jeejeebhoy Family Office, the family office of Ambit Capital founder Ashok Wadhwa, angel investor Rohit Dhoot, and SMECorner founder Samir Bhatia.
GrayQuest – set up by Rishab Mehta in 2017 – says it enables parents to pay their children’s annual education fees in up to 12 monthly instalments without any extra costs. Along with this, users also get access to GrayQuest’s student-focussed privilege programme and complimentary insurance protection for lifetime education fees.
This pre-Series A round is the company’s first external fundraise. “GrayQuest aims to become the default method of paying education fees for the 100 million plus learners studying in private-sector education institutions,” Mehta said.
He added that the company has seen increased demand from educational institutions following the nationwide lockdown caused by Covid-19. According to his LinkedIn profile, the GrayQuest founder is an alumnus of Massachusetts’ Babson College, and has worked with Refex Group.
Separately, Foundation Holdings managing director Aakash Sachdev said the firm’s investment in GrayQuest was in line with its commitment towards building an omni-channel education ecosystem.
Overall, Foundation Holdings says it has committed over $150 million to meet this objective, including through investments in GrayQuest, Toppr, and Ryan EduNation, which operates traditional bricks-and-mortar schools.
Deals in fintech
Investor interest in the financial-technology segment has continued unabated despite the pandemic.
Last week, public transit-focussed offline and contactless payments company CityCash raised $1 million (around Rs 7.5 crore) in seed funding from early-stage venture capital firm Orios Venture Partners.
Late last month, Matrix Partners and SAIF Partners participated in the seed funding round of fintech firm Jodo.
Also in July, group payments-focussed goDutch raised $1.7 million in a seed funding round led by Matrix and blockchain-based chit fund management platform ChitMonks secured about Rs 5 crore from early-stage investor Unicorn India Ventures.
