GrayQuest scoops up $1.2 mn in bridge funding round

Mumbai headquartered GrayQuest Education Finance, which runs an eponymous fintech startup, has raised $1.2 million in a bridge funding round led by Dubai-based investment firm Foundation Holding.

The funding round, dubbed as Pre Series A by the company, also saw participation from investors such as Mahansaria family office, Jeejeebhoy family office, Ambit Capital founder Ashok Wadhwa’s family office, fintech lending company SMECorner’s founder Samir Bhatia and angel investor Rohit Dhoot.

Launched in 2017 by Rishab Mehta, GrayQuest provides education loans for students and professionals. It enables parents to pay annual education fees in up to 12 monthly instalments, instead of paying it to educational institutions in two-three bulk instalments. 

“The average Indian household spends nearly 24% of its total annual income on children’s education placing financing of education fees top-of-mind for parents. GrayQuest aims to become the default method of paying education fees for the 100 million-plus learners studying in private sector education institutions,” Mehta, founder and CEO, GrayQuest said.

The startup, citing a study by ResearchAndMarkets, revealed that India holds an important place in the global education industry with around 1.8 million K-12 schools and a learner base of 250 million.   

Foundation Holdings, established in 2016 by Abhishek Sharma, invests in startups across healthcare, education, and consumer sectors in India and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. Last month, it invested $46.7 million in a growth funding round in artificial intelligence (AI)-based learning platform Toppr.

Earlier this month, online student loans platform Eduvanz secured about $3 million (Rs 23 crore) in a Series A funding round led by Sequoia Capital and Vistra ITCL, an entity of Unitus Seed Fund India II. 

Omidyar Network backed Credenc, FinancePeer and GyanDhan are other players in this space.