CollegeSearch Turns Profitable as Revenue Doubles; Eyes

Inorganic Growth in Coming Year

(Attn.editors: The following press release comes to you under an arrangement with PRNewswire. PTI takes no editorial responsibility for the same).

CollegeSearch Turns Profitable as Revenue Doubles; Eyes Inorganic Growth in Coming Year

NEW DELHI, December 19, 2017/PRNewswire/ -- CollegeSearch.in, an online college selection and application platform run by AM Edumedia Pvt Ltd, has turned profitable and is well positioned for growth, accelerated by select acquisitions, according to the company's management.

"We had doubled our sales in FY16 and cut losses by half; in FY17, revenue has doubled again and we have become profitable. We have the highest revenue growth in our category and are making significant gains in market-share," said Chief Executive Anirudh Motwani.

The 6-year-old company competes with several older and better-funded players in its space. "We surpassed both HTcampus and Minglebox on traffic during peak admission season (May-July) last year and grew from less than 5% to more than 30% of Shiksha's users as the industry moves from a lead- selling model to an application driven one," Motwani added.

The company, which claims to have over 150 colleges and universities as clients in over 16 states, said that it was now looking to accelerate growth inorganically via select acquisitions. "We have achieved profitability not by cutting cost but by increasing revenues. Now, we will look for websites in the space with strong user-generated content and organic search traffic which can be merged with our core business," said CFO Parul Bansal. She said the company had bought several overseas domains but would not consider overseas acquisitions at this stage.

CollegeSearch allows users to find in-depth information on more than 13,000 Indian colleges and universities including fees, placement, faculty, photos, reviews and admission dates. Over 5,000 of these colleges accept applications via CollegeSearch and the company claimed to process over 500,000 college applications in 2016. The space has significant regulatory tailwind, with most entrance exams including JEE Main and CAT moving online and the University Grants Commission (UGC) issuing guidelines to all universities and affiliated colleges asking them to make online admission mandatory.

CollegeSearch had previously raised investment from the Indian Angel Network (IAN) led by Anupam Mittal (founder of Shaadi.com), Vikram Upadhyaya (founder of GHV Accelerator) and Varun Khurana (former CTO of Grofers). It has the highest ratio of mobile users in the online college application space and its clients include entrance exams such as SNAP, IBSAT, MUAT, NEST, MRNAT, SUAT and others.

About CollegeSearch

CollegeSearch.in, India's leading admission platform used by over 5 million students and 7,000 colleges annually provides extensive information on colleges including courses, fees, placement, videos and reviews. Chosen by Economic Times as the one of the top 15 hottest startups of India in 2015, CollegeSearch is also the first Indian company in the education space to be awarded the reputed Top 100 Fast Growing Companies in Asia award by Red Herring.

Media Contact: R Chandrakala chandrakala@collegesearch.in +91-9687966996 Content Associate AM Edumedia Private Limited

Source: AM Edumedia Private Limited PRNewswire OSS