Student loan provider Eduvanz raises ₹100 crore from JuvoVentures, Sequoia and others

• The Series B round was led by JuvoVentures, Sequoia Capital and Unitus Ventures, among others.
• The fintech startup is also looking to hire across distribution, institute partnerships, technology and operations verticals.
• Eduvanz claims to have disbursed loans worth more than ₹500 crore to over 30,000 learners.

Education loan provider Eduvanz has raised ₹100 crore to expand its offering and launch new products in the coming quarters. The Series B round was led by JuvoVentures, Sequoia Capital and Unitus Ventures, among others.

The company will also use this funding to develop a stronger information technology (IT) infrastructure as well as enhance its artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities for risk assessments before giving out an education loan.

The fintech startup is also looking to hire across distribution, institute partnerships, technology and operations verticals.

Founded in 2016 by Varun Chopra and Raheel Shah, Eduvanz claims to have disbursed loans worth more than ₹500 crore to over 30,000 learners. The company now aims to disburse another ₹1,000 crore in loan across all the lending products in financial year 2022.

Eduvanz had also raised $10 million in debt funding in February 2021 from multiple financial institutions including InCred Financial Services, Vivriti Capital and Northern Arc Capital. For any lending business, debt funding is used to disburse loans as there is no equity involved.

“India is going to be the fastest major economy in this fiscal and with COVID-19 cases easing out, several Indians are looking to reskill and enroll into new courses. The funds we have raised provide us the right launchpad for our next level of growth in India in the education lending sector,” Chopra, chief executive of Eduvanz, said.

The five-year-old startup works with students and institutions to enable equated monthly instalments (EMI)-based loans under a ‘study now-pay later’ model. The company focuses on students from kindergarten to grade 12, higher education and upskilling courses.

It competes with Leap Finance, which is a lending startup that focuses on education abroad.

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