Gradeup, the exam preparation startup, is expanding at a rapid pace. It is expecting a revenue growth of 3x in 2019-20 as compared to the previous fiscal. The startup has 2 lakh transacting users, and expects this figure to reach 5 lakh by the year-end.
“Our platform’s top five markets are Hyderabad, Patna, Lucknow, Delhi and Pune. We wish to further enhance our penetration in tier 2, 3 and 4 cities. Additionally, access to Gradeup in tier II and tier III cities has especially benefitted those aspirants who lack coaching institutes,” said Shobhit Bhatnagar, co-founder, Gradeup.
The Noida-based firm has raised $7.5 million as part of Series A funding. “We intend to raise more funds soon. We wish to utilise the incoming flow of funds to expand to more categories, introduce new products and enhance our penetration in tier 2,3,4 markets. We also plan to invest in technology to make online preparation more interactive, personalised and seamless,” he said.
Over the last three years, Gradeup has built a huge community with monthly active users (MAU) of 2.5 million. In terms of total registered users, Gradeup has jumped from 6.8 million users in FY17-18 to 13 million already and it hopes to reach 15 million registered users by the end of the current financial year.
The company is confident that people preparing for competitive exams will actively use Gradeup. This year, it is focusing on building deeper services which add value to the students. On the value addition Bhatnagar said that the most recent one is ‘Classroom’ – a comprehensive planned approach towards exam preparation. It includes live classes by expert faculty, live quiz discussions, mock tests with live analysis and 24×7 mentor support.
“Our second focus area is intelligence practice and adaptive assessment system. These will lead to targeted improvements in aspirants’ performance. We will also keep adding new exam categories to reach out to different segments of our audience and become a comprehensive source of exam preparation,” he said.
Since its launch in 2015, Gradeup has evolved into a multi-platform experience with a combined app, website and YouTube presence. In September 2018, it crossed the milestone of 10 million subscribers. While 6 million-plus tests have been taken on Gradeup with 155 million question attempts in a month, close to 330 million-plus minutes were spent by aspirants on its platform in a month.
“Our key differentiator is that we are increasing our reach horizontally to address a big market of exam categories. This essentially means reaching to a larger user base, moving towards a bigger funnel, and building products that lead to higher scalability and increased revenue. We also cover a lot of niche exams that are not easily available in offline coaching centres. Exams like teaching and PCS have an unorganised market of offline coaching which creates an opportunity for us to lead in the market,” he said.
