jodo funding: Fintech startup Jodo raises $15 million in funding led by Tiger Global
Existing investors Elevation Capital and Matrix Partners India, from which Jodo raised $4 million in 2020, also participated in the round.
The company said it will use the funds to accelerate product innovation and sales, as well as increase headcount.
Founded in 2020 by Atulya Bhat, Raghav Nagarajan and Koustav Dey, Jodo offers a suite of specialized payment and lending products to make fee payments convenient and affordable for parents of students. It also makes fee collection hassle-free for educational institutions.
Jodo offers lending products through non-banking financial company (NBFC) partners to help students and their parents finance education.
“There has been a resurgence of offline education and we are growing with it. The last two years (post-Covid-19) have helped digitize offline payments and we have noticed more educational institutions offering flexible payment options to parents .But it is difficult to offer this flexibility (for these institutes) without the right solutions as reconciliations can be a nightmare,” Bhat told ET.
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Jodo currently collaborates with over 700 educational institutions in the country, of which 40% are offline schools in the kindergarten to grade 12 (K-12) segment.
It has catered to over 100,000 students and has processed fee payments of over Rs 1,000 crore on the platform since its inception.
With the latest funding, Jodo plans to scale up its education partnerships to 5,000 institutes in the next 18 months, including schools, colleges, offline coaching centers, and help 1.5 million students with fee payments.
It also looks to process Rs 10,000-Rs 15,000 crore in fee payments on its platform and plans to double its headcount in the next 12-18 months.
Apart from offering payments, lending and loyalty benefits around fee payments, Jodo also plans to launch newer products to manage payments made by educational institutions, as well as launch an education savings product for parents.
It is also looking at avenues to help create a payments ecosystem for university campuses and educational institutions, Bhat added.
“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,” said Alex Cook, Partner, Tiger Global.
The company is also looking to apply for its own NBFC license in the coming months.
“We are 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 they are not only solving a deep pain point, but that they are doing so through technology-first solutions that are intuitive to use,” said Mridul Arora, Partner, Høydehovedstad.
