 "Ruchir Arora, founder of CollegeDekho. Image via Tech in Asia")
In India, where there are over 35,000 colleges and more than 30 million enrolled students, many students choose paths that leave them without jobs after graduation. 1.5 million engineers are pumped out of its education system each year and 33% run the risk of never finding employment.
According to Ruchir Arora, founder of CollegeDekho, this means that the educational advertising market in India is worth somewhere around $374 million. “It’s practically impossible for colleges to set up their own CRM (customer relationship management, or collected data that businesses use to analyze their interactions with current and potential customers) tools,” he explains. “If students are equipped with enough information, they can make more intelligent decisions on education.”
CollegeDekho connects colleges and their course listings with interested students. It includes features like a step-by-step search tool that uses basic interests to figure out appropriate colleges and chat forums for prospective and enrolled students in the same college. It also provides information on a variety of entrance exams and rankings.
Until this funding, Ruchir explains that the start-up has been bootstrapped. “We have 25 people on our team and our leads – 5,000 downloads – have all been organic until now. That goes to show that there’s a huge market here.”
