Have you ever come across an
accelerator programme in India where start-ups are voted by their peers to decide who gets the pre-committed
seed money? That’s exactly what is going to happen at global education leader Pearson’s inaugural
edupreneur programme, jointly launched by its Affordable Learning Fund (PALF) and
Village Capital, an organisation that supports mission-driven entrepreneurs around the world. The
Pearson Affordable Learning Fund, set up last year, invests in low-cost private schools and other affordable educational solutions.
The programme, which has started a couple of weeks ago, has shortlisted 15 educational start-ups that leverage innovative technologies to develop affordable learning solutions for the bottom-of-the-pyramid segment.
After a rigorous initial screening, the final 15 have been chosen out of 125 applicants from all over India. The selected start-ups are now going through Village Capital’s globally recognised curriculum spanning 12 weeks. There will be adequate mentoring, in-person workshops and regular webinars throughout this period and two start-ups will be finally selected through peer reviews to share a cash investment of $150,000 from PALF and Village Capital.
The
peer review part is the most intriguing characteristic of this programme as potential competitors evaluate each other on specific parameters and vote for the most suitable candidates. At each workshop, each team pitches to its fellow-edupreneurs, who rank one another’s performance against six criteria necessary for successful scaling. These include customer validation, team strength, product quality, scaling & impact, financial model and exit strategy. However, one cannot rank oneself and all rankings are done publicly. Also, the top and bottom rankings for each company are discarded to reduce the influence of outliers.
Once the ranking is done, the top two teams will receive $75,000 of seed
funding each on the Investors’ Demo Day. There will be the traditional connect with the investors as well – so that start-ups can raise funding as per their requirements.
Commenting on the programme, Ranu Kawatra, CEO and president of Pearson Education India, said in a blog post, “With millions of children still out of school in India, it is need of the hour to make quality schooling accessible and affordable for underprivileged children. Edupreneurs seeks to reduce the gap by partnering with entrepreneurs who have the skill and passion for improving access to quality education in poorer communities.”
Here are some of the Final 15 firms who made the cut. Watch this space as we bring you more information on leading edupreneurs of India.
40K Plus Education
Callystro Infotech
EdWell Solutions
Effect International
Experifun Learning Solutions
Magic Pathshala
MangoSense
Sage Services
Scholowiz Educational Solutions
SEED Edu Corp
Sudiksha Knowledge Solutions
RMinds Education
TeachersLikeMe
Teer Designs