GyanDhan

Posted By Graymatterscap On Tue, Jan 22, 2019

GyanDhan is  India’s first online education financing marketplace which has since April 2016, enabled over 2000 loans via banks to students in India wanting to pursue higher studies abroad. It is working with leading financial institutions including State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda and Axis Bank and simplifies the education loan process through innovations such as doorstep document pickup, fully online approval for loans without collateral etc.

The fintech start-up will use its proprietary student employability assessment framework – GyanDhan Score, to help its partner NBFCs and banks to structure skill building loan offerings linked to employability-based outcomes.

Investment Rationale

The funding via Gray Matters Capital’s edLABS initiative was made with the objective of GyanDhan diversifying its loan portfolio from Study Abroad loans for Higher Education to making access to affordable and hassle free loans for skill building courses a possibility. In line with this portfolio diversification, GyanDhan is also working on using data insights to rank vocational training institutes in India.

Gray Matters Capital believes that the yawning gap that is seen today between existing skillsets and those required by the workforce for the jobs of the future can be bridged only through vocational education. The funding is aimed at overcoming any financial constraints faced by individuals in India in taking up such courses. 

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About Graymatterscap

Gray Matters Capital (GMC) is an Atlanta based impact investor with a gender lens that is on a mission to “Find a more purposeful life for 100 million women by 2036." Aligning with its mission is its strategy of making sector agnostic investments globally in for-profit enterprises whose products and services benefit women and girls at scale.

GMC sees education, primarily catering to under-resourced and low and middle income sections of the society, as a powerful tool to bring about gender equality and social equity. Over the past 12 years, it has focused on supporting the education ecosystem India by funding for-profit enterprises in the ‘learning to earning’ space, besides being pioneers in establishing the school finance industry catering to low cost private schools in India with Indian School Finance Company (ISFC); Pakistan with the set-up of Taleem Finance Company Ltd (TFCL), in addition to Nigeria (with EdFin Microfinance Bank).

GMC has till date funded over 80 enterprises across the world to the tune of US$ 125 million.

To know more, visit: graymatterscap.com