Jodo, a fintech startup in the educational payments space today announced that it has racked up $15 Mn in Series-A funding led by Tiger Global. Other investors who also participated in the fundraising included – Elevation Capital and Matrix Partners India. The company previously raised $4 Mn from both the existing investors.
Founded in 2020 jointly by Atulya Bhat, Raghav Nagarajan, and Koustav Dey, the trio with a deep belief in the power of contextual financial products decided to launch Jodo on noticing the plight of various households in terms of paying the education fees owing to a dearth of flexible payment options.
The startup’s first set of offerings is a suite of specialised payment and lending products aimed at making payment of fees convenient and affordable for parents of students and also making the whole fee collection process hassle-free for educational institutions. Jodo is presently focused on serving the private education sector, a high-value $100 Bn plus annual spend category without proper financial products.
The company aims to use the fresh funding to accelerate product innovation, push sales, and further grow its team.
Sharing their view, the founders of Jodo said, “Education fee payments, one of the most important and high-value spend categories, has seen little innovation and is lagging in digitisation. At Jodo, we have built industry-first payment & lending products grounds-up keeping the requirements of parents, students and educational institutes in focus. With this capital, we will double down on the momentum and continue to bring innovative financial products to market. We are thrilled to have Tiger Global join us in the journey, and thank Matrix Partners India and Elevation Capital for their continued support.”
Payment solutions specific to the collection of education fees are the need of the hour. The last couple of years, through the Covid-19 pandemic, has been a difficult time for both educational institutions and parents. The realisation of fees has been low for institutes as they have not been able to offer different payment plans to cater to the parents’ varying needs. The products launched by Jodo, have helped educational institutes to offer multiple flexible payment options to the parents and have also increased the institutes’ fee realisation thereby digitising the entire fee collection process.
Jodo’s products currently power fees collection for more than 700 educational institutes and have facilitated fee payments for more than one lakh students. The payment solutions offered by Jodo ensure a seamless fee experience for both the schools as well as the parents. While educational institutes are able to get a predictable inflow of payments, improve collection efficiency and decrease the fee collection window, parents, offer a flexible schedule for fee payment which is most convenient for them.
Jodo is on track to become a leader in the education payments space as the startup has clocked 10 times growth year-on-year since it was founded two years ago, as its products are being adopted at a rapid pace.
Sharing his perspective, Alex Cook, Partner, Tiger Global, said, “Jodo is modernizing payments and credit for India’s education market by increasing convenience and affordability for parents and providing a better workflow for schools and institutions. We are very impressed with Jodo’s progress and are excited to partner with them as they expand the product suite and become available at more schools.”
Mridul Arora, Partner, Elevation Capital said, “We’re privileged to renew our partnership with Atulya, Koustav, and Raghav. The enthusiasm with which their products have been adopted by schools and parents alike proves that not only are they solving a deep pain point, but that they are doing so through tech-first solutions that are intuitive to use. We wish them all the best in the next phase of their journey.”
“We’re believers in the vertical payments + fin services opportunity – every industry and market participant has adopted digital payments and digital ways of working. Jodo is poised to be a leader in vertical payments, integrating business workflows and finance, starting with education payments. We are delighted to reinvest to deepen our partnership with Atulya, Koustav, and Raghav and welcome Tiger Global to the partnership,” said Vikram Vaidyanathan, Managing Director, Matrix India.
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