 "S Chand and Co to acquire stake in government test prep platform ixamBee")
Education content firm S Chand and Company Limited will acquire a stake in test preparation startup ixamBee (AToZLearn Edutech Private Limited). The round also includes investments from directors of S Chand, Mukesh Sharma Family Trust, Inflection Point Ventures (IPV), Firstport Capital, Keiretsu Forum, and Others.
ixamBee was founded by Chandraprakash Joshi, Arunima Sinha, and Sandeep Singh in December 2016 in Delhi NCR.
India currently has over 80 million graduates who are preparing for various jobs in the public and private sectors. Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, most students from tier-II and- III cities are now more focused on online platforms for preparation.
"The focus on providing quality and affordable learning to students in semi-urban and rural areas, so that their aspirations and dreams can be a reality, is in line with the S Chand vision of quality and affordable education opportunities. We find a lot of synergies with ixamBee on quality content development, marketing, and meeting the aspiration of the future workforce of the country," says Himanshu Gupta, managing director at S Chand Group.
ixamBee helps unskilled graduates and undergraduates prepare for government competitive examinations like those conducted by banks, insurance companies, Railways, etc. It had earlier raised funds from Mumbai Angels Network, JITO Angel Network, Keyur Joshi (co-founder MakeMyTrip), and a few noted alumni of the ISB, Hyderabad.
“Most of our users come from Tier II/III towns, who do not get a quality education or access to the right guidance...We are excited to have S Chand Group, Mukesh Sharma Family Trust, and IPV as investors in ixamBee as they bring numerous synergies for business growth," said Chandraprakash Joshi, chief executive officer (CEO) of ixamBee.