An average IIT aspirant spends about Rs 75,000 preparing for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE), yet it\u2019s nearly impossible to assess his or her progress during coaching. Also, due to the poor quality of teaching at many centres, students are made to learn by rote. That\u2019s why a trick question can easily throw them off guard, and mock tests don\u2019t necessarily indicate a student\u2019s final performance. In contrast, students taking a GRE or GMAT practice test are reasonably certain about their final score.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aditi Avasthi, a former TCS employee, set out to change that when she founded Embibe, an online service to prepare students for competitive exams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Avasthi, 33, knew that breaking into the entrance coaching market would be tough. Instead, she asked herself: \u2018How can you improve the performance of every student?\u2019 Her eureka moment came in 2012 when she realised that sophisticated analytics had the potential to provide personalised feedback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Embibe started in June 2012 with $700,000 in seed funding raised mostly from Avasthi\u2019s family and friends. The first year was spent drafting preparatory tests for the JEE and medical entrance examinations. In December 2013, Kalaari Capital and Lightbox Ventures invested around Rs 24 crore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe invested in Embibe as it looked at education from a very different lens. It wanted to focus on making students smarter in taking exams,\u201d says Prashant Mehta, partner at Lightbox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Currently, Embibe has 2,20,000 students taking its tests. Once a test is complete, the company\u2019s analytics engine provides feedback on a host of factors\u2014the average time a student spent on a question, what concepts were consistently answered wrong, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over ten tests, Embibe says they have seen a noticeable improvement in scores. \u201cWe have been able to predict a candidate\u2019s final score at the JEE with 92 per cent accuracy,\u201d says Avasthi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Given its asset-light model, Embibe does not have to fear burning cash. It has not set up any classrooms and has a small 50-member team working on tests and analytics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the key challenge will be to scale up rapidly. This is where Embibe may well have an ace up its sleeve. Like LinkedIn, it plans to make its tests free for users and charge them only for the analytics. If the user sees value, she will pay. Next on the agenda is to create a test series for students in classes VIII, IX and X and also enter the bank recruitment examination space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":1868,"template":"","press_release-tag":[33,31,21],"press_release-archive":[42],"yoast_head":"\n