ImaginXP, a university embedded provider of degrees and short-term certifications, announces funding of $1.5 Million to accelerate growth in its unique B2B higher education model. The round was led by Venture Catalysts along with co-investors like Shashank Deshpande, Krish Kupathil, Samyakth Capital and others. On the back of the pandemic led disruption and the upcoming implementation of NEP2020, ImaginXP is helping universities provide future skills degree programmes and for-credit certification courses with corporate-led curriculum, well-trained faculty and the MyCoach platform that brings 1250+ corporate coaches led mentorship & live projects for students. The focus is on student outcomes by enabling universities to provide world-class education in India.
ImaginXP provides B.Des (Bachelor of Design), M.Des (Master of Design), BBA, MBA, BSc and BTech degree programmes in partnership with universities. The MyCoach platform connects corporates and startups to the students for live projects, internships and shadow learning during university life and ImaginXP students have been working with companies across the globe. The pandemic led online working model has only accelerated these opportunities for students. The company currently has 2500 students studying in full-time degree programmes and 15000+ students on the MyCoach platform. In line with the recommendations of the IIT panel to the ministry of HRD, the company also aims at creating a professor of practice for future skills in its partner universities. Additionally, with universities getting enabled for online degrees, ImaginXP is in a unique position to enable its partners to provide online degrees.
Within three years the company has partnered with 22 universities across the country and employs 70+ full-time faculty members. 1250+ working professionals act as corporate coaches on the MyCoach platform to train, mentor and create mock work-like environments on projects to increase student employability. There are 300,000 students collectively studying at these partner universities that act as a captive TAM for ImaginXP to train in future skills. With a deep focus on student employability, the company provides for-credit certification in the upcoming fields of design, sunrise technologies and business such as UX, Design Thinking, Gaming design, AIML, cybersecurity, RPA, Robotics, fintech, health tech and more.“ImaginXP has a proven revenue model with universities to help them increase their capacity by providing future skills and a focus on student ROI. The MyCoach platform with such a huge captive TAM and online degrees has digitally accelerated the company to a 3 times growth trajectory over the last 2 years. The impressive hold over the higher education market led us to partner with the team” says Anuj Golecha, Co-Founder at Venture Catalysts.
Founded by Shashank Shwet and led by Prof. (Col) Shishir Kumar, ImaginXP value lies in making its partners successful in closing the employability gap. “ImaginXP is partnering with universities to give them access to a world-class curriculum with an industry partnered delivery model. The success of universities is the success of ImaginXP” explains Prof. (Col) Shishir Kumar, Director General, ImaginXP
“We aim at making our partners feature in the top 500 universities of the world” he adds. “3.7 crore students in India pay $7Bn in tuition fees and our mission is to provide them with global quality education at university campuses and online courses. Our test of time was during the pandemic when the traditional university model got disrupted. We quickly scaled up our digital platform MyCoach to provide for-credit courses to the universities and engage the students on their behalf. “This company is a fantastic blend of corporate & academia; online and offline” adds Shashank Shwet, Co-founder, ImaginXP.
The current round of funding is aimed at accelerating both offline and online degree programmes. This unique business model makes ImaginXP a challenger to Laureate and GUS, albeit in an almost zero asset model. The company aims to hire 500+ faculty and create new disciplines in design, technology and business to get the students ready for the digital world. The company boasts of the students getting placed in companies like Cognizant, EY, 1MG and others.
