BigDeal, an Exclusive Student Deal’s Platform, Gets Pre Series-A Funding from EVC Ventures

BigDeal, an exclusive student deals platform, has raised an undisclosed amount in their Pre Series-A of funding from EVC Ventures. The round is led by Anjli Jain, Managing Partner, EVC Ventures.

Aashish Singh, Founder & CEO, BigDeal and a recent graduate from Birla Institute of Technology said “As a student it was always difficult to find deals online or offline relevant to our pockets. We as students have limited spending power; however, no platform curates discounts & deals exclusively for students.”

Aashish wanted to solve this pain point and founded BigDeal as a platform to help connect students & merchants.

BigDeal’s tech, handled by Damanpreet Singh, alumni of Indraprastha University, was upgraded with the I-MADE Platform and is now the exclusive student discount platform for 35,000 institutions in India and will help 20 million students save more money. It is present throughout the student ecosystem including deals, coupons, online food delivery, takeaway, dine-in, recharges, online shopping and commuting.

Connecting Merchants with Target Audience

BigDeal is currently live in more than 25 colleges in India and The US and has deals from more than 500 merchants, and aims to generate 1,000 transactions per day with 80% repeat user, within next 4 months.

BigDeal app aims to be both a discovery platform for students looking for discounts and a significant sales channel for merchants looking to tap 16-25 demography, enabling retailers to operate a single cohesive student program. Merchants can maintain the supply of real-time deals to students across sectors like, food & beverage, travel, mobile recharges and e-commerce with a hassle free, just in time platform for merchants to market their services.

“We will use this funding to expand the team, further enhance our technology and customer & merchant acquisition. We are aiming for a 10x growth in customers in a span of next 4-5 months and increase transactions per customer by 2.5 to 3 times a day.” said Aashish.

Anjli Jain comments on EVC’s investment in BigDeal: "We look for passionate founders who believe in achieving profitability and growth simultaneously. BigDeal is targeting one of the most sought after market segments, college students; And with its partnership with I-MADE, it is positioned strategically to be leader in the space.”

EVC helps entrepreneurs turn ideas into unicorns. EVC is a $50 million fund focused exclusively on early stage investments in Ad Tech, E-Commerce, Gaming, Education, Mobile Apps, Enterprise Software, Wearables and Internet of Things (IoT). It also operates EVC Accelerators in the United States and India where it provides capital and mentorship to help entrepreneurs turn ideas into unicorns.

EdTechReview, an EdTech Media Platform & Community, Raises Pre-Series A from EVC Ventures

EdTechReview, a global edtech media platform and community, has raised an undisclosed amount in their Pre-Series A round of funding from EVC Ventures. The round is led by Anjli Jain, Managing Partner, EVC Ventures.

EdTechReview.in has grown into a leading media platform for educational stakeholders to find useful news, information and resources on educational technology having a niche readership from over 200 countries and territories across the globe majorly from North America, Asia and Europe with over 200k visitors a month.

In addition, EdTechReview is actively involved in sharing the best practices of using technology in education across K-12 and higher education sector through events, training, professional development, and consultation for its adoption and implementation with the motive to help educators and institution leaders understand what technology best supports learning, teaching and leading at institutions.

When asked about EdTechReview’s post investment plans, CEO Utkarsh Lokesh said “We plan to use this fund to expand our activities in different cities in India to make this education community stronger on ground. Because of our local market understanding and reach, apart from working with edtech startups and companies in India we are already working with a lot of foreign edtech players (companies and investors) planning to enter the Indian education market and would be expanding our team to help such companies with a host of services.”

In relation to the underlying purpose he added, “On one side, there are a hundreds of edtech startups and companies (both Indian and foreign) itching to understand the Indian education system, and on the other there are thousands of educators looking to take their practices to the next level using various technologies; so we see EdTechReview as the only organization playing a key role here in bridging this gap between two set of stakeholders. We want to put our experience of working with hundreds of institutions and edtech, e-learning companies to use, by creating a strong forward thinking community in India.”

EdTechReview’s expansion plans will focus on:

1. Organizing niche events across the globe including its flagship events in India EdTechReview K12 and Higher Ed Conferences which will this year bring together over 600 institution leaders and 50 edtech companies to explore current and emerging trends in education technology.


2. Creating a global edtech startups listing platform with details on their funding and features to connect to edtech investors.


3. Develop a job portal (starting from India) to support hiring for the fast-growing edtech and e-learning market.


4. Grow more of its community contributions and newsletter subscribers with the help of feedback from existing subscribers.


5. Work on customized research reports for institutions to help in their technology decision making and for edtech companies and investors to understand the market better.

Founded by Utkarsh Lokesh, Shantanu Rana, Divya Prakash and Saransh Garg, EdTechReview is currently serving over 60000 active subscribers globally; engaging and working with over 1000 K-12 and higher education institutions and over 100 edtech startups and companies worldwide.

Commenting on EVC’s investment in EdTechReview, Anjli Jain informs:

“EdTechReview is leading the way in building and bringing the education, technology and entrepreneurship community together involving various stakeholders. Our funding will help EdTechReview launch various new initiatives for this education technology community and we are glad to support this. We have seen EdTechReview becoming a key resource for the edtech market, hence we are excited to help Utkarsh and the EdTechReview team continue developing niche and innovative events, technology and services for this fast-growing edtech market.”

EdTechReview will focus on operating out of two offices in Delhi and Gurgaon before expanding to other geographies; though the company is going to expand its services and activities in different cities in India and abroad. Over the next 6 months EdTechReview aims to strengthen the community through several niche products, events and conferences in India targeted towards K-12 schools, colleges and universities, education entrepreneurs and investors respectively with an obvious focus on providing global edtech players a platform to enter the Indian edtech market.

Gurgaon Based Milkbasket Raises $500K in Pre-Series A Round of Funding

Gurgaon-based micro-delivery eCommerce company, Milkbasket that was founded in early 2015 by Anant Goel, Ashish Goel, Anurag Jain and Yatish Talvadia, has raised $500,000 in pre-Series A round led by EVC Ventures and Chinese Investors including Peter Zou, CEO of YeahMobi, and Li Jian, founder of Zhu Dao Investments. Snapdeal vice presidents Vikas Banga and Manav Kamboj also invested as well.

"We will use this fund to expand the core team, further enhance our technology and beef up the logistics. We are aiming for a 10x growth in customers in the next four to five months and increase per customer spend by 2.5 to three times during this time," said Anant Goel, CEO of Milkbasket.

The startup is a subscription-based asset-light micro-delivery service fulfilling daily grocery and household needs of customers. It is currently operates in 15 clusters in Gurgaon, each cluster with a user base of around 500. Starting with only milk delivery, Milkbasket now offers over 3,000 products through a hybrid inventory model to maximize product margins while controlling costs. Its app has recorded about 1,000 downloads so far.

The company would focus on establishing itself in Gurgaon before expanding to other geographies. It also is expanding its offering portfolio with an aim to cover all daily needs of customers. Over the next 6 months, Milkbasket aims to grow to a 250-strong organization with 80%  workforce in logistics and serving over 15,000 orders a day across more than 100 clusters in Gurgaon.

The funding comes at a time when the hyperlocal grocery space faces a tough period. A few days back, Sequoia backed most heavily funded startup PepperTap closed its hyperlocal delivery business. In January, hyperlocal grocery and fresh food delivery startup Grofers shut down its operations in nine cities and in October 2015, Mumbai-based LocalBanya, a three-year-old online supermarket, stopped taking orders.

Gurgaon Based Milkbasket Raises $500K in Pre-Series A Round of Funding

Gurgaon-based micro-delivery eCommerce company, Milkbasket that was founded in early 2015 by Anant Goel, Ashish Goel, Anurag Jain and Yatish Talvadia, has raised $500,000 in pre-Series A round led by EVC Ventures and Chinese Investors including Peter Zou, CEO of YeahMobi, and Li Jian, founder of Zhu Dao Investments. Snapdeal vice presidents Vikas Banga and Manav Kamboj also invested as well.

"We will use this fund to expand the core team, further enhance our technology and beef up the logistics. We are aiming for a 10x growth in customers in the next four to five months and increase per customer spend by 2.5 to three times during this time," said Anant Goel, CEO of Milkbasket.

The startup is a subscription-based asset-light micro-delivery service fulfilling daily grocery and household needs of customers. It is currently operates in 15 clusters in Gurgaon, each cluster with a user base of around 500. Starting with only milk delivery, Milkbasket now offers over 3,000 products through a hybrid inventory model to maximize product margins while controlling costs. Its app has recorded about 1,000 downloads so far.

The company would focus on establishing itself in Gurgaon before expanding to other geographies. It also is expanding its offering portfolio with an aim to cover all daily needs of customers. Over the next 6 months, Milkbasket aims to grow to a 250-strong organization with 80%  workforce in logistics and serving over 15,000 orders a day across more than 100 clusters in Gurgaon.

The funding comes at a time when the hyperlocal grocery space faces a tough period. A few days back, Sequoia backed most heavily funded startup PepperTap closed its hyperlocal delivery business. In January, hyperlocal grocery and fresh food delivery startup Grofers shut down its operations in nine cities and in October 2015, Mumbai-based LocalBanya, a three-year-old online supermarket, stopped taking orders.