A practical exit: 100Marks gets acquired by Edtech startup Embibe

Consolidation is in the air. Starting with e-commerce, it is now spreading to other sectors as well as more startups mature. 100Marks is a Morpheus Gang company that was started in April 2012 to help students crack the IIT JEE, one of the most rigorous entrance tests globally. The company was recently acquired in a cash+stock deal by Embibe, a Mumbai-based ed-tech startup that was backed by Kalaari Capital and LightBox Ventures.

Founded by Pradeep Kumar and Anushri Kocher, 100Marks has had a steady organic growth curve and they hit the one lakh registered users mark in November last year. Their aim was to provide an online platform for students to practice for and improve their chances to crack the IIT JEE. With a footprint of two million unique visitors on their website last year, 100Marks is a popular platform which students use for extensive doubt resolution.

Despite a steady growth, in order to take their game to the next level, 100Marks needed investments and additions to the team. The duo had put in all the hard work and had reached a point where further investment or more alliances was needed. “We were looking for partners and that is how we approached Embibe. After a couple of meetings, we found that we both had great synergies and shared a common vision of helping students score high results, so we thought it was only logical for us to join with Embibe and create a strong platform for test prep in India,” says Pradeep.

100Marks content and product is now merged with Embibe's and both the 100Marks founders will be working on building organic growth for Embibe. Pradeep will also be involved in Product Management. Embibe was set up in November 2012 and is primarily an education analytics consumer tech startup with a keen focus on marks improvement for students across all ability levels.

Embibe leverages personalised data analytics and technology to capture student weaknesses centered on critical exam performance metrics like speed, accuracy, time management, attempt planning, stamina and also addresses psychological factors like confidence. “In acquiring 100Marks, we’ve not only welcomed India’s most respected and prompt JEE prep guidance platform to the Embibe family; we’ve also been fortunate to add two extremely committed young entrepreneurs to our team,” said Aditi Avasthi, Founder and CEO, Individual Learning, the registered entity for Embibe.

For 100Marks, this is a great step forward since a lot of competition has come up in the test prep space with the likes of Toppr and Embibe picking up venture capital. For 100Marks to survive and find a practical exit, Embibe is one of the front runners to go with. For Embibe, it makes a lot of sense to acquire a product that has been in the market for three years and achieved a lot of goodwill. And ofcourse, adding the founders to the Embibe team will be an additional plus. The exact terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but it is an encouraging sign for the test preparation startup. One can expect more mergers and acquisitions in the space in the coming times.

Website: http://www.embibe.com/100marks/jee/

Interested in knowing about other test preparation startups in India? HERE

(image credit: Shutter Stock)