Indian Angel Network invests in incubatee IndiaCollegeSearch

By Shruti Chakraborty

The Indian Angel Network has invested an undisclosed amount in Gurgaon based startup IndiaCollegeSearch (ICS). The company was incubated at the IAN Incubator for a year before it raised the investment. The startup is the first of the incubatee companies to raise funding from the IAN, Padmaja Ruparel, President, IAN said.

The startup was founded in 2010 by Anirudh Motwani and Parul Bansal to help make the process of college admissions easier for students by helping them search for the right college. The platform went live in October 2010, connecting colleges and students online.

[caption id="attachment_1000357" align="alignleft" width="380"] IndiaCollegeSearch will use the funds raised to expand its existing user base while continuing to improve the quality and depth of the information it provides, a press statement said.

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The platform helps students find all the relevant information about various colleges, including information on faculty, courses, fee structure, various events being held at the colleges and the admissions process.

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"Students don't have information about a lot of colleges. At most they may know about a college from someone who has gone to the institute etc. At most students will have awareness about 40 to 50 colleges," Motwani, Co-founder ICS, said.

The startup has over 7000 colleges that are using the platform and over seven lakh students. It covers colleges that offer courses in business management, engineering, pharmacy, medical, law, and architecture amongst others.

Its clients include colleges like Amrita University, Jindal Global University, ICFAI Business Schools, LPU and Alliance School of Business. Motwani says that the list is not just restricted to private colleges but also has some government run higher education institutes.

The platform offers services to colleges on a freemium model offering data and analytics services to colleges on what courses are more popular amongst students, kind of applications being received etc. The platform is so far free for students.

The investment was made by Anupam Mittal, Founder & CEO at People Group, the company that created Shaadi.com, Vikram Kant Upadhyaya, Board Member of the IAN incubator and Varun Khurana, Head - India Development Center at Location Labs and member of the IAN. Upadhyaya and Khurana will also join the IndiaCollegeSearch's board.

Upadhyaya said "when the startup had joined the incubation program the founders had a clear understanding of the problem statement and what they wanted to solve, but they were missing a go-to-market strategy." Motwani also said that before the incubation the startup didn't have a clear revenue model, something that the incubation helped with.

IndiaCollegeSearch will use the funds raised to expand its existing user base while continuing to improve the quality and depth of the information it provides, a press statement said.

Ruparel said that the IAN will announce investments in other IAN incubatee companies in coming months.

(Shruti Chakraborty works for Entrepreneur magazine)