Education financing platform GyanDhan has raised INR 50 crore in its latest Series A funding round. The money came from edtech company Classplus and venture capital firm Pravega Ventures.
The funding will help GyanDhan grow its business by adding more consultants, improving its technology to make student loans easier, and expanding into smaller cities (Tier II and III cities) across India.
GyanDhan also plans to double the number of financial partners to 30 and make its tech, credit, and sales teams stronger. It will also invest in community activities like seminars, workshops, and programs to teach people about managing money.
“Education financing in India sits at a powerful intersection of fintech innovation and social impact. GyanDhan’s dual strategy of marketplace scale and focused NBFC lending, combined with their SaaS platform, demonstrates exceptional market understanding,” said a spokesperson from Pravega Ventures.
GyanDhan wants to grow the total value of loans it helps provide to INR 18,000 crore in the next three years, up from the current INR 7,000 crore. It also plans to look into new areas like skill development and executive education.
GyanDhan was started by IIT graduates Ankit Mehra and Jainesh Sinha. The company’s goal is to make higher education more accessible by using technology to offer easier and more flexible financing options for Indian students, whether they study in India or abroad.
“We are backing their team to become the definitive gateway for education financing in India, addressing a massive gap in an underpenetrated market,” the Pravega Ventures spokesperson added.
The cost of higher education is rising in both India and other countries, which is putting more financial pressure on middle-class families. But GyanDhan says that in India, fewer than 20% of students take education loans—much lower than in countries like the US, where about 45% of students use loans.
The Delhi-based company said this shows there is a big gap in access to affordable education loans. The system is complicated and broken up, making it hard for students and consultants to find and use the right loan options.
GyanDhan believes that its mix of a marketplace and NBFC (non-banking financial company) model, along with working closely with partners, can help meet the changing needs of the education financing sector.
In the financial year 2024, the company earned INR 21.4 crore in operating revenue and made a profit of INR 1.36 crore. It has received investment from the Education Catalyst Fund, Sundaram Finance, Stanford Angels, Harvard Angels, and individual investors like Pravin Gandhi and Satyen Kothari.
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