The Institute for Career Studies (ICS International), a career counselling and other educational services provider, has raised $320,000 (about Rs 2.45 crore) from an angel investor to upscale its platform.
The Lucknow-based firm secured the fresh funding from Rishi Bagla, promoter of Bagla Group.
Founded in 1985 by Dr Amrita Dass, a leading educationist and career consultant of the country, Institute for Career Studies (ICS) provides a broad spectrum of educational services, including career counselling, studies abroad guidance, preparatory courses, online automated tests, professional development programmes, and PG Diploma in career counselling. The institute has conducted career counselling and other educational programmes in more than 300 schools, colleges, professional institutes and universities in India and abroad.
ICS claimed to have served over 300,000 students through a dedicated and highly-qualified team of counsellors and professionals, and successfully trained over 10,000 teachers and more than 1,000 principals and education leaders since its inception.
Commenting on the funding and how it will help the firm, Amrita Dass, Founder-Director, Institute for Career Studies, said,
“ICS is entering into this strategic partnership with Mr. Bagla to exponentially expand its online counselling space and take its trusted counselling and guidance services directly to millions of students and parents across the world.”
The education company said it will use the new capital to upscale its technological needs over the next year, and also to invest in building on its existing robust counselling and guidance services.
Spelling out the prospect of online career counselling in the rapidly changing scenarios, and his interest in investing in the company, Rishi Bagla said,
“We invested in ICS because they are the pioneers of career counselling with 35 years of rich experience in the field. The online career counselling space is a huge global market, especially with the rapidly changing career scenarios requiring people to frequently seek career guidance. ICS has the vision and the expertise to leverage this opportunity in a meaningful way.”
ICS also specialises in providing consultancy to educational institutes at various levels. The institute has also forged alliances with universities in the US, Canada, the UK, Singapore and Japan for innovative, student-centric programmes.
Evolving with time and technological change, ICS today offers its services aligned with the emerging Fourth Industrial Revolution powered by artificial intelligence and other state-of-the-art technologies.
Recently, the institute organised two conferences on Education 4.0 and Careers 4.0 – claimed to be the first-ever to be held globally – bringing together stakeholders such as students, parents, education leaders, career counsellors, academicians, corporate leaders and policy-makers to discuss on ways to make youngsters future-ready.
