India’s largest platform for careers beyond engineering and medical, Toprankers announced that it has raised $4 million in its Series A funding round led by Sixth Sense Ventures, a leading consumer fund.
With the fresh capital, the Bangalore-based company plans to introduce new categories in the test prep segment such as study abroad programmes, tutoring courses, career counselling programmes, and finance and commerce test preps. It is also looking at hiring around 160 teaching and non-teaching staff in the next 12 months.
Founded in 2016 by serial entrepreneurs, Gaurav Goel, Karan Mehta, and Harsh Gagrani, Toprankers envisions building awareness and increasing the success rate for lucrative career options after the 12th. The platform offers courses in the test prep segment focusing on law, judiciary services and state exams, management test prep exams like Central Universities Common Entrance Test (CUET), and design, fashion, and architecture entrance tests such as the National Aptitude Test in Architecture (NATA). It provides these courses under different brands such as LegalEdge, JudiciaryGold, SuperGrads and CreativeEdge.
Commenting on the funding, Co-founder and CEO of Toprankers, Gaurav Goel, said:
“Over 15 million students appear for Grade 12 every year, with roughly 10% of them sitting for engineering and medical. The remaining 90% are unclear about their career choices, we want to help this segment in making a clear choice about their career and offer them the right preparation courses for a brighter future. We have brands which serve unique career opportunities, and we’ll continue to add more brands serving a larger pool of students across verticals.”
Toprankers has already garnered a dominant share in law, with LegalEdge amassing 70% of the ranks across national law exams, while Judiciary Gold is replicating this success across state judiciary exams. The company’s new initiatives SuperGrads and Creative edge have also embarked on a similar journey by producing top AIR’s in management and design exams.
The startup claims to have helped over two lakh students start their careers and aims to build careers for 10 lakh students over the next three years.
Nikhil Vora, Founder, and CEO of Sixth Sense Ventures, added:
“Online test-prep is a high growth opportunity fuelled by increasing competitiveness and migration from offline to online/hybrid. Millennials and Gen Z are aspiring for careers, beyond engineering and medical, presenting large whitespaces with almost no presence of incumbents. Gaurav, Karan, and Harsh are seasoned ed-tech founders, who understand nuances to make a student’s career journey successful.”
Vora further said:
“Look forward to partnering with Toprankers as it establishes itself as India’s largest platform for new-age careers for the students of tomorrow.”
The online test preparation platform is planning to set up around 25 offline centres including one in Kota, Rajasthan, and in Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. It presently has around 10 offline centres under its brand Toprankers Hybrid.
Nimisha Nagarsekar, Investment Partner, Sixth Sense Ventures, who will be joining the board of the company, has said:
“CUET will potentially create a huge test-prep vertical. Being one of the first movers with an active product enables Toprankers to capitalize on this opportunity. Excited to partner with Toprankers in their journey to become one of the largest full-stack career companies.”
Felix-ETR is the banker for the transaction.
In the near future, Toprankers is also looking to make acquisitions in the study abroad and career counselling segments.
