Fintech startup Jodo secures $15 million in funding led by Tiger Global


Fintech startup Jodo secures $15 million in funding led by Tiger Global
Jodo, a fintech startup focused on education payments, has raised $15 million in a fresh funding round led by New York-based investment firm Tiger Global.
Existing investors Elevation Capital and Matrix Partners India, from whom Jodo raised $4 million in 2020, also participated in the round.
The company said it will use the funds to accelerate its product innovation and sales, as well as to grow its headcount.
Founded in 2020 by Atulya Bhat, Raghav Nagarajan and Koustav Dey, Jodo provides a suite of specialised payment and lending products to make fee payments convenient and affordable for parents of students. It also makes fee collection hassle-free for educational institutes.
Jodo provides 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 along with that. The last two years (post-Covid-19) have helped in digitising payments offline, and we have noticed that several education institutes are offering flexible payment options to parents. But it is hard to offer this flexibility (for these institutes) without the right solutions since reconciliations can be a nightmare,” Bhat said.
Jodo currently partners with over 700 education 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 over Rs 1,000 crore worth of fee payments on its platform since inception.
With the latest funding, Jodo plans to scale up its education partnerships to 5,000 institutes over the next 18 months, including schools, colleges, offline coaching centres, and help 1.5 million students with their fee payments.
It also looks to process Rs 10,000-Rs 15,000 crore worth of fee payments on its platform and plans to double its headcount in the next 12-18 months.
Apart from providing payments, lending and loyalty benefits around fee payments, Jodo is also planning to launch newer products to manage payouts made by education institutes, as well as launch an education saving product for parents.
It is also looking at avenues to help create a payment ecosystem for university campuses and education 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 licence in the coming months.
“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,” said Mridul Arora, partner, Elevation Capital.