Bangalore-based ed-tech startup GetMyUni, which helps students in choosing the right college, course, and exams, has acquired an online learning platform ieltsmaterial.com on 15th April 2020. IELTSMaterial operations have been merged with GetMyUni post-acquisition.
IELTS is an English language testing system taken by international students who want to work or study in an English-speaking country.
IELTSMaterial which was founded in 2014 is a preparation platform for IELTS with 3.5 million learners annually in more than 100 countries and helps millions of users by providing free IELTS study material.
Post pandemic students are forced to learn online, which in turn helped the platform to grow two times in sales since acquisition.
Upneet Grover, Founder, and CEO of GetMyUni told in an interview that they are committed to helping the 50 million students who visit their platform every year to choose a course/college and they will be formally entering the $10 billion market of study abroad with this acquisition by helping students not just in India, but globally.
About the Startup
Hardik Thakkar and Upneet Grover, founders of GetMyuni found themselves doing so much research to choose the right college to pursue their post-graduate studies. In June 2014, they decided to start a social college search platform, which will help students to choose their dream college easily. They started the startup in February 2015. Initially, they created campus ambassadors and in-product marketing programs to receive student reviews about colleges. It was a huge success. They were making enough revenue to run the business for some time until they received funding of $50,000 from Tlabs.
There are competitor websites like CollegeDekho, Shiksha, and HT Campus but they are classified platforms. Upneet believes that there won’t be much peer information in classified platforms because they are built to generate leads, unlike GetMyUni which had UGC at its core like Zomato in the food industry and Airbnb for travel.
Upneet in an interview said that they aim to build the strongest recommendation tool which can help students, who are misguided by the offline consultants. He also believes that if there is a fair portal, which can create a set of college recommendations based on the student’s background, marks, and abilities, by using advanced algorithms, that product will be a super success.
GetMyUni was founded in 2015. It is a Times Internet-backed ed-tech startup based in Bangalore. It has one more online platform excluding itself and IELTSMaterial namely TheCollegeMonk. They serve more than 50 million students every year collectively. The startup works with 200+ universities in India and abroad driving over 10K+ enrollments to these universities. They claim to have 11,000+ colleges listed and 40k student-written reviews on their website. Over the years, GetMyUni has become one of the largest College/Course search platforms in India.
Other major acquisitions in ed-tech that have happened in the year 2020 are:
- Byju’s, an online learning platform for school students of classes 4th to 12th, the leader in the EdTech industry and is the second most valued start-up after Paytm acquired WhiteHat Jr., a Mumbai-based ed-tech start-up that aims at teaching coding to young school-going kids in India and U.S.
- Byju’s to acquire Doubnut, an Indian learning application that offers services to students from class 6th up to giving competitive exams. It is a doubt clearing app. It offers its services in 11 languages.
- Byju acquires LabInApp that provides licensed-based programs that include experiments in maths and science for class 9th till 12th using 3D simulation. It is basically like a laboratory but online.
- Unacademy acquires Mastree, whose basic aim is to smoothen the transition from elementary school to high school by providing classes in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics for students of classes 5th to 8th.
- Unacademy acquires PrepLadder, which helps students to crack medical entrance exams.
