STARTUP
SPECIAL BEST ON CAMPUS - Started on College, Out to Conquer
Purple Squirrel Eduventures bridges the gap
between institutional learning and employability
...and the (ET) award goes to Aditya Gandhi
& Sahiba Dhandhania
Purple Squirrel Edventures Aditya Gandhi, after
completing his engineering course at the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay,
moved to Europe to work in derivatives and equities options at trading firm
Optiver Amsterdam. It was during his stint there that Gandhi began mulling
deeper on the major disconnect in India between what was taught at colleges and
the real trends and dynamics of industries.
In Europe, this gap was significantly narrowed
as it was common practice for students there to go on industrial visits and interact
with experts. Soon after, in 2013, Gandhi returned to India to launch Purple
Squirrel Eduventures along with Sahiba Dhandhania, who was a financial analyst
at D E Shaw & Co in Hyderabad.
The startup, incubated at IIT-Bombay , offers
supplementary , industry-driven education by connecting students with the
latest developments and trends in multiple sectors, an effort to improve
employability of college graduates in India.The company coordinates industry
and site visits, workshops and projects for students.
“This is pretty amazing,“ Gandhi said on being
informed that Purple Squirrel had been selected as the winner in the `Best on
Campus' category .
Gandhi and Dhandhania also want to enable
students to make informed choices on their career and companies through a
singular platform.
Students can register by paying a subscription
fee and will have access to an array of findings and content on every industry
, industrial learning tours and subject experts. The Mumbai-based startup, with
an annual revenue run rate of about Rs 3.18 crore, is present in 12 cities and
has collaborated with more than 350 companies and 100 colleges, enabling at
least 5,000 “experiences.“
Purple Squirrel has raised about Rs 1.9 crore in
seed funding from India Quotient and Matrix Partners so far. The company plans
to launch its second leg of operations focussing on skill development next
year.
Purple Squirrel is presently running a pilot
project with 10 colleges on skill development, an important element of learning
for all students. The company will curate content and course material that will
be integrated into the curricula of the colleges involved in the pilot.Purple
Squirrel expects that a combination of offline training and online content as
well as experiential learning will steer students in the right direction,
sharpen their decision-making capabilities and make them familiar with new
courses and trends.
Subjects will be curated for every course and
students can request for personalisation or niche learning. Purple Squirrel,
which presently has 1 lakh paid users on its platform, wants to launch this
segment early next year.
Gandhi is aiming to register 1,000 universities
as the company launches its skill development section, and hopes to achieve
about Rs 38 crore in revenue by the end of next year.
ET14AUG15
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