10 things every entrepreneur must know for getting funded

  • December 24 2021
  • 3 mins

10 things every entrepreneur must know for getting funded

Startups require funding for working capital and growth. The nature of funding can be for equity, on debt or collateral-free grants. While Mirainxt is investing in new-age ventures, there are 10 things that every startup founder must know to raise funds

1. Knowledge about investing:

Every startup needs capital in the form of money. The most important and the most valuable way to fund the business is to sell the product or service to customers. There are different ways to raise funds, and each way usually comes into the picture at various stages of a company’s life cycle. The first one is to use your own money. Next, it’s usual to call on friends and family to invest, I.e. bootstrap. Then one looks for outside investors like venture capital firms or angel investors and, after that, private equity. And once the enterprise has taken off, it can sell shares through an IPO (initial public offering of shares).

2. Why do investors usually invest?

90% of the businesses are not fundable. One has to be privately limited to be eligible for startup funding. Investors don’t care how the entrepreneur & the business is doing. All they care about is the money they invested in the company gives returns or not.

3. The need for funding for the enterprise:

The need for investment is to be determined before everything. What does the enterprise need fundings for? The answers may include manufacturing products, hiring sales professionals, marketing professionals or critical managers, market expansion, etc. According to MSME, the investment made in plant & machinery or equipment in manufacturing enterprises is less than INR 25 Lakh for micro-business & less than INR 5 crore for small businesses. Regarding service enterprise, the investment provided is less than INR 10 Lakh for micro-business and less than INR 2 crore for small businesses.

4. Steps in investing process:

If the enterprise is in the initial stage of funding needs, it is suggested to go for seed funding first. Then the next step is Angel Investor, as the startup ends to grow towards development. Then comes Venture Capital Financing to scale business to new channels & customer segments. After this comes various types of A, B, C, D, E & F funding types. But once the business has released money through each of the preceding stages, going public is an option to expand further, i.e. raising an Initial Public Offering (IPO).

5. Understanding investors point of view:

Investors make their money by helping a young company grow and gain in value and then cashing in a few years later when it is sold or goes public. They expect a huge return on their investment i.e up to 2 to 10 times or more of what they have invested in. It’s also important to remember that investors don’t make their money as they go. They earn the returns in one lump sum, years after the initial investment. This thought affects how investors view their investments in an enterprise.

6. Is the investor the right fit and the other way around?

Not every investor is the golden ticket, and just because the business has been presented with a fair term sheet doesn’t automatically mean it should be signed. The funding amount and valuation are important. But equally as important is making sure the investors are the right fit.

7. Benefits of getting funded:

Some investors provide various resources and advice to the entrepreneurs, but it should be kept in mind when they have to take a backseat and let the entrepreneurs run the company. There is easy access to business capital & other networks and linkage with fundings.

8. Risks & disadvantages of being funded:

There are two sides to a coin: one doesn’t want a too controlling investor. The entrepreneur put in the work to get the startup to this point, so the entrepreneur should run the company. The entrepreneurs are the CEO, not the investors. There are a few

additional tasks of sharing ownership & critical decisions, but it all depends on the enterprise’s funding.

9. Expectations of investors from entrepreneurs:

There are all sorts of funding the entrepreneurs can seek out, and there are different kinds of investors. But they are generally looking for the same things. They look for the one who has

appropriate business knowledge knows the use of funds, explains the return timeline, has intangible qualities & passion.

10. Funding requires time:

The process could take up to 90 days from the initial pitch to the investors till the entrepreneurs get the money in the bank. Many entrepreneurs have mentioned that it can take six to nine months to complete the funding process.

Finding funding and the right investor can be a tricky part of getting your venture off the ground, but also the most rewarding when you begin by getting the first investment cheque. Getting funded is an important milestone for an entrepreneur’s long journey to success.

How to build a sustainable startup ecosystem

  • November 13 2021
  • 5 mins

How to build a sustainable startup ecosystem

In this growing era of startup innovation centres, one walks past many co-working spaces branded as ecosystems. According to global statistics, the new age entrepreneurs are expected to be responsible for more than 20% of the gross jobs that will be created in the near future. There is much hype about emerging startup ecosystems, with even the governments willing to consider adding value.

However, often in the hype, the directional loss leads to more propaganda and little action on the ground to develop sustainable startup ecosystems. One can see many press releases about funds being used to create shiny facilities to spur the startup innovation ecosystem. However, these initiatives are good marketing tools most of the time but don’t make a difference to the startups.

Similarly, based on the herd mentality, much funding goes into startups as a flavour of the season; however, later, it is realized that these ventures might not have found product-market fit. This is where ecosystems fail to see the need for a foolproof and robust startups selection plan. Building startup ecosystems is a slow approach, built bottom-up with patience led strategy and capital. That is the only way to create growing companies led by changemakers and result oriented ecosystems. 

Collaborative Mindset: Developing startup ecosystems is not an empirical zero-sum. Being on edge and collaborating with startups on what they need is precisely how ecosystems can develop unicorns. Coming out of the traditional business mindset and working collaboratively with startups is the foundation to developing a robust ecosystem. Hence, the collaborative ecosystems are not dominated by gatekeepers who want to micromanage the startup founders. Thriving ecosystems develop many specialized organizations to work together as partners in tech, legal, fundraising, to name a few. These high impact ecosystems have mentors and coaches that help entrepreneurs across several programs and not just one or two cohorts. New age ecosystems build communities so that the startups can also benefit from peer learning. The collaborative mindset of startup ecosystems should foster operational excellence with no compromise

Map the Available Market: Mullins Framework: In simple terms, the 7 Domains Model equips ecosystems to help entrepreneurs decide whether an opportunity is viable and marketable or not. Most importantly, it helps the ecosystems line up the low hanging fruits for their cohort before entering unchartered territories. A most important aspect is the upward and downward connectedness of the ecosystems from which value drivers can be offered to the cohorts. Many new entrepreneurs are oblivious to the local startup resources, and ecosystems can help bridge the gap efficiently. Ecosystems need to help startup leaders map their ecosystem, promote collaboration, and templatize processes with practical outcomes.  

Network Aggregation: a critical step in building a sustainable startup ecosystem is to network for reach and depth. This is expected to be a weekly gathering of various vertical experts so that the ecosystem is always in action. One would realize that networking leads to unstructured yet long term learning on how to avoid mistakes. Moreover, it should be a part of the program structure of the ecosystem to be able to provide the most networking opportunities to the cohort. There should also be two mega formal networking events hosted by the ecosystem, over and above the mentoring sessions and demo days. 

In the end, it matters how the startups see the ecosystem supporting them for strategy, business and funding. Moreover, every day, action-oriented work should be on the premises, which keeps the founders’ adrenaline high. Many engagements with local government initiatives would also make a difference in creating a formidable startup ecosystem.

India’s Healthtech Startups Empowering Healthcare

  • November 13 2021
  • 5 mins

India’s Healthtech Startups Empowering Healthcare

The Covid-19 pandemic was an ‘eye-opener’ for the Indian healthcare ecosystem. It exposed the systemic gaps and deficiencies in healthcare which became an opportunity for healthcare startups. With the two devastating waves of covid, much stress on the healthcare system became a reason for health tech startups to identify and solve relevant problems. What started as a time of high caseloads and unimaginable deaths in the country, the medical professionals, frontline staff, and the hospital infrastructure were overwhelmed with a need for innovation. With the unprecedented challenges, India also grappled with the scarcity of oxygen sources, medicines and the need to upgrade the systems to deliver a robust, easy-to-access healthcare infrastructure.

Based on a 2020 report published by Inc42, titled India’s Healthtech Landscape In A Post-Covid-19 World, the Covid situation brought out the importance of quality healthcare and its implementation by technology ventures. Technology-led healthcare ventures are playing an essential role in the healthcare systems. These startups are using deep tech AI/ML for predictive analysis and diagnosis of the problem, supplemented by the teleconsultation-based advisory. Pre and post-treatment phases have seen innovative healthcare startups that are providing remote health monitoring solutions. 

These aspects can only be effective if the patient data is readily available at the touch of a button. Hence the new age health startups have also developed end to end and secure solutions for complete digitization of patient data. This value chain leads to highly convenient and safe access to healthcare services for the people who need them the most. 

Considering the above-mentioned use cases, it is an instant view of India’s importance of the healthcare innovations and startups ecosystem. However, let’s see some data to know what is the on-ground situation, as per Inc42 information:

The Indian health tech market is estimated to be $21 Bn by 2025, which is just 3.3% of the total addressable healthcare market pegged to reach $638 Bn in 2025

  • Two unicorn rounds cornered the lion’s share of this year’s health tech funding. Innovaccer got $105 Mn in February this year, and PharmEasy raised $350 Mn in April to enter the coveted unicorn club.
  • Healthtech startup funding in FY21 (April ’20 to March’ 21) went down by more than 43% ($443 Mn raised in FY21 compared to FY20’s $790 Mn). However, sectors like edtech, consumer services and media & entertainment recorded growth of 118%, 51% and 261%, respectively, amid the pandemic.
  • With $689 Mn invested during the first four months of 2021, the sector has already raised 30% more funding than 2020.

The tech-powered solutions are bound to play a critical role in India’s healthcare ecosystem; however, the education and corporate innovations ecosystem need to be supported as well. The pandemic has instilled fear and uncertainty even among doctors as much as patients and healthcare. The uncertainties have given rise to telemedicine practices, video consultation, home healthcare and remote patient monitoring solutions.

With India having 3000+ startups that focus on health tech, it is one of the fastest-growing sectors and needs solid backup. There is a massive opportunity in the public-academic-private partnerships to boost the health tech innovations in India. Mirainxt, backed by three decades of pharma and dental institutions experience, is well poised to scale up health tech ventures. It further looks forward to similar collaborations between health tech startups and institutions to unlock combined potential.

Why are investors queuing up for edtech in India

  • October 28 2021
  • 5 mins

Why are investors queuing up for edtech in India

Indian startups claim to have raised $11-12 Bn funding in 2020 across 924 deals. However, the dark horse was ed-tech with a 225 % rise in funding than in the previous year. With the traditional offline education system shutting down during covid, 2020-21 is working out to be a big bang year for the ed-tech sector.

According to estimates, ed-tech startups raised more than $1.5 Bn across 100+ deals between the last 12-18 months, witnessing a whopping 225 % rise compared to the previous year. A year ago, many investors did not consider edtech in the top 5 investment sectors despite many startups available for consideration. Due to the new normal and china education system being revamped, the Indian ed-tech ecosystem has become a place for investors to queue up.

In the covid situation, most of the VC firms gathered around the big ed-tech firms for investment. With the addressable market growing phenomenally, paid subscribers and revenue of edtech ventures rose quickly. As per reports, since the lockdown was announced in March last year, BYJU’S added 33 Mn users (cumulative user base 75 Mn), and Unacademy’s user base grew to 40 Mn. It seems India has around 6000 registered edtech startups, and the number will rise exponentially due to the investor’s interest. The current time is a golden period for the ed-tech ventures; however, one needs to see what happens when offline learning returns. 

From Byju’s to Eruditus — now India has four ed-tech unicorns, thanks to a colossal fund flowing in since 2020, and it’s expected to continue for a time to come. India has already seen three ventures turn unicorn and one into a decacorn in the last two years. Analysts estimate that Teachmint, Classplus, Quizziz could enter the unicorn club in the next 6-12 months. India’s ed-tech sector is expected to keep gaining investor confidence, especially after China’s latest regulation has ordered all school curriculum and live tutoring ed-tech startups to go non-profit, which creates a big tutoring gap that Indian ed-tech startups can fulfill.

Indian ed-tech companies can soon claim to be the ‘tutor of the world’, with most of them expanding in global ecosystems. With a solid English-speaking population and tutors backed by access to capital and seasoned investors, the Indian ed-tech ecosystem is here to stay, scale and succeed.

AtmaNirbhar Bharat

AtmaNirbhar Bharat

  • October 28 2021
  • 5 mins

AtmaNirbhar Bharat

AtmaNirbhar Bharat or Self Reliant India is a natural opportunity that has come India’s way with Innovation and push for entrepreneurial initiatives. The think tanks of the Indian government proposed five pillars for ‘Make in India’ to be successful. These have been namely

  • Economy
  • Infrastructure
  • Modern technology
  • Vibrant demography
  • Demand generation

Globally, the strength of a country’s entrepreneurial and Innovation ecosystem is GII (Global Innovation Index), released by WIPO. It is quite heartening to notice that India is one of the top three innovation economies with more scope for improvement in the current ranking order.

Atmanirbhar Bharat aims to take India to be innovative and make solid science and technology clusters fostered by innovation centres and government initiatives. Our nation must use its demography to its advantage for the promotion of Innovation and entrepreneurship. The innovation centres add a valuable element to the startup founders, reducing their fear of failure: the first building block of Atmanirbhar Bharat. India’s young population must get access to all the full opportunities to explore their hands in entrepreneurship and innovations.

One of the most important aspects of becoming Atmanirbhar Bharat, is the quality of Innovation, which can be fostered by educational institutions and their innovation centres like MiraiNxt. Some of the innovations which have impacted our life in the last two years have happened across Asia and not only in the developed economies. While covid has become a global challenge, it has also brought the Indian entrepreneurial ecosystem around opportunities to lead frugal innovations. With India is at the forefront of vaccine drives and medical innovations during covid, this rise of Indian intellect is one of the best examples of Atmanirbhar Bharat.

Once the current pandemic is history, the world might limp to normalcy. However, India’s growth story will need to have the ability to stand on its own and continue the spate of innovations. It will be necessary to have Innovation and entrepreneurship based on data and business intelligence to keep enhancing the self-sustenance ability of India. It will require India to strengthen our IPR ecosystem, which innovation centres support initially. 

Most professional education institutes in India are establishing Innovation and Entrepreneurship ecosystems. However, the Industry associations need to play a more significant role in promoting entrepreneurship, bringing angel funding for startups coached in educational institutions and reducing their journey time to the market. It is a need of the hour for India to continue creating youth with problem-solving and critical thinking. With the innovation centres support, they can be ready to take new challenges with the willingness to learn from failures

Going Global

  • October 09 2021
  • 5 mins

Going Global

To be successful, startups and young companies must explore
all potential growth avenues, especially away from the country of origin. If
the company can onboard innovation centres early in the venture and get access
to advisors who can be catalysts of growth, they can effectively implement a
global strategy. The question that many startup founders have in their minds
is, Why adopt a global strategy in the first place?

 

Many startups aim to get deeper market penetration in their
local market and might not even bother, won’t even have to worry with a
multimarket strategy. This may be an ideal outcome in a perfect world; however,
managing the steady flow of capital, consistently outpacing the competition and
strong business development investments might be a challenge by remaining only
in the domestic markets. A larger market mapping strategy could increase
returns by establishing a presence in other markets to drive meaningful sales
and growth through value and volume.

 

Of course, going global can also lead to the explosion of
wealth — and by the extent of efforts it can lead to a significant increase in
the number of consumers, these are opportunities hard to ignore. Innovation
centres help founders to identify markets that have the same synergies and are
developing at the same pace as the domestic markets. This can lead to a lower
level of competition, and startups can position their products as first movers
and gain athe advantage of the financial benefits.

 

Going global as a startup has immense potential and
unstoppable growth. However, one must get the right advisors and mentors to
mitigate consumer’s social and cultural attitudes in different markets. There
is a possibility that specific markets feel that products from developed
markets are better than those from developing ones. Associating prestige with
the point of origin is a common global practice and fallacy which startups must
overcome with impeccable product performance and service.

 

Enhancing the startup’s connectivity globally is a real need
of today. Covid 19 has accelerated rapid digitalization in every aspect of
daily lives, and cooperation in the digital field has become more crucial than
ever between startups originating from multiple nations. Global startups
collaboration is possible in many areas of digital transformation, including
education-tech, e-commerce, e-health, entertainment (OTT, Gaming) and Essential
Services (Banking, Power, Telecom), to name a few.

 

The online economy has become a lifeline, and global
corridors and partners need to bring in strategic alliances in digital
transformation. The learning curve of developing startups using AI, ML,
Blockchain, Cloud Tech and connected economies can be a vision by developing
joint centres for excellence in corporations and classrooms. All this will need
is cooperation in developing a global entrepreneurial ecosystem with a
success-oriented mindset given to startup founders with solid coaching and
mentoring.

What makes a unicorn: The Super Founders Do

What makes a unicorn: The Super Founders Do

  • September 27 2021
  • 5 mins

What makes a unicorn: The Super Founders Do

A unicorn is a venture hitting a $1B valuation. Whether you are a scientist or a college dropout, the resilience of the founder is key to building a unicorn. The tandem of having a combination of a sales, marketing and tech founding team is not enough. More than the immediate acumen, it is the will of a visionary founder that creates new markets and unicorns.

The examples of famous unicorns are good to refer to but one shoe does not fit all in terms of what succeeds and what does not. The experienced researchers in the startup’s space across the world have concluded that the number of co-founders a company has and their age does not have a direct connection to their likelihood of becoming a unicorn eventually. It  has been mentioned that:

  • 85%: the per cent of companies that eventually became unicorns had competitors at launch.
  • 30%: the per cent of founders who had worked in the same industry before.
  • 17%: the per cent of unicorns over the past 15 years that outright failed.
  • 4%: the per cent of college dropouts, less than the number of PhDs.
  • 1.6x: how much more likely a founder with a previous startup failure was to reach a $1 billion valuation compared to a first-timer.

The industry analysis leads to believe that repeat founders were more likely to reach unicorn status as in any other craft that practice makes a team closer to perfection. India is also seeing a flurry of unicorns. As quoted by an article recently “Close to half of India’s billion-dollar-plus tech ventures—26 till mid-August—have emerged in 2021. Two dozen unicorns have emerged in just eight months” so what does the road look like ahead?

Everyone from customers to investors is surprised and elated by the number and pace of unicorns in India. Consider recent ones like Apna, online health and medicine delivery platform PharmEasy is a result of the bullishness investors have for the Indian startup’s ecosystem.  With the excess financial liquidity in the marketplace, there seems to be an abundant supply of capital and the development of solid entrepreneurial support ecosystems like MiraiNxt. This financial liquidity has coincided with a rise in high-quality startup founders developing deeptech problem-solving solutions. It seems astounding to note how many new super angels and family offices have started participating in the funding and scaleup rounds of new-age ventures.

The wheel of unicorns in India has just started to churn and the next big waves are coming fast. Since unicorns are getting to be plenty, they may not be as aspirational as before. Seems it’s time India now starts producing decacorns valued over USD 10B. If the current trends are any indicators, by the end of 2023, India might have created an excess of 100 unicorns, thanks to technology and world-class innovation centres being leveraged by the Indian startups.

Corporate Innovation Centres

  • September 13 2021
  • 5 mins

Corporate Innovation Centres

Startups need three elements to succeed: Strategy, growth and fundraise. These elements are further segmented into their desire to learn about technology, investor relations, product management, sales, marketing and people strategy. Overall, a startup has to get all the support that can make it a large enterprise.

The success of startups can be expedited with support from corporate innovation centers. India is amongst the top 5 locations for innovation centers in the world. India’s innovation centers have leapfrogged to be in the top five globally, working on innovation and futuristic solutions.

For corporates worldwide, India has been rising as one of the favorite destinations to develop and nurture corporate innovation centers. With a list led by Silicon Valley, London, Paris, and Singapore, now Bengaluru and Hyderabad are close to supporting the future of tech and startup ecosystems. Of these, companies like Cisco and Xiaomi also have venture funds to back startups that align with these conglomerates’ corporate strategy. The corporate innovation centers in India top brands like Apple, Airbus, Visa, CISCO, PB, Microsoft, Phillips, and a few.

One of the successful corporate innovation centers is Airbus’ Bizlab. They intend to bring together startups and their intrapreneurs, while Visa claims to consider having 2,000 developers who will work on next-generation payment solutions as a part of their innovation center. Around the world, the financial services industry leads the opening of innovation centers. As per the research reports, the financial sector constituted 24 percent of the newly opened innovation centers, ahead of 21 percent from electronics and IT and 16 percent from the manufacturing industry.

Also, a couple of years ago, studies showed that 55 percent of the innovation centers globally operate as startup accelerators, while 33 percent of them are in-house innovation labs. Here is a summary of a few of the large enterprise innovation centers:

  • HP Inc. Innovation Lab Name: HP Labs: HP Labs is a research facility that focuses on technologies like 3D printing, microfluidics and imaging, endpoint security, and digital manufacturing.
  • Alphabet Innovation Lab Name: X Founded: 2010
  • Created in 2010 to work on “moonshots” that “aim to make the world a radically better place” — Google X became X in 2015, a separate division within Alphabet, the parent company of Google. X is the innovation lab where some of Alphabet’s most significant projects happen, such as graduated projects Google Glass and self-driving car company Waymo.
  • Microsoft Innovation Lab Name: Microsoft Research Lab Founded: 1991
  • Microsoft has numerous labs, each focused on applying research independent of product development cycles. Projects include accelerating large-scale model inference and training, refining accessibility to build more inclusive technologies, and more.
  • TCS Innovation Lab Name: TCS Innovation Labs Founded: 1981
  • TCS’ wide-spanning network of technology, domain, and academic alliance labs lets IT experts of all stripes create new systems. Research areas range from deep learning & AI to media, entertainment, & advertising.
  • Philips Innovation Lab Name: Philips Design
  • Design is at the core of many high-tech companies and innovation labs alike. Philips Design focuses on new ideas and new technologies to improve the lives of its customers. This lab gives its innovators, who come from a wide array of disciplines, the freedom to explore and find new solutions.

Corporate innovation is critical for enterprises to contact the entrepreneurial ecosystems and stay relevant in the face of disruption. While the pandemic has caused many organizations to go slow on the cost of innovation efforts, many others have fast-tracked it. Sometimes corporate innovation centers don’t yield what is expected; however, the economy changes at breakneck speed when they get it right.

The Trend Of Investments Happening In India

Investments

  • August 17 2021
  • 5 mins

The Trend Of Investments Happening In India

The last year was noteworthy for the Indian VC industry, with some moderation over high growth seen in preceding years. There has been a significant growth in the number of small value deals (~500 deals <$5 million in value), which is a good indicator for the early-stage ventures across sectors. Over the last year, in total 22 start-ups in India raised over $100 million from the VCs across growth equity investors. 

( Figures are from the report by Bain and Co) 

When considering the key sectors attracting most investments, deepech, healthcare, consumer tech, SaaS, and fintech continued to lead the way. They account for 70-75% of the VC investment and growing in double digits every year. The various sub-sectors include 

(a) edtech, foodtech, gaming, media and entertainment in consumer tech; 

(b) Verticalized solutions within SaaS, including healthcare;  

(c) Fintech and cybersecurity

SaaS, in particular, saw clear signs of moving ahead faster, with average deal size increasing to $25 million in 2020 compared to earlier years. Going forward, the deal momentum in India is expected to be stronger and reach pre-covid levels by the end of 2021. In 2019, reeling under the impact of covid, VC investments totaled $3 billion in January to March, declined to $1.1 billion in April to June, and then recovered to ~$3 billion each in the next two quarters. 

Edtech saw multiple high-valued deals such as Byju’s, Unacademy, Eruditus, CueMath, ClassPlus, and Vedantu. Into the foodtech, Zomato’s $660 million deal drove up average deal size while large investments into Dream11 and MPL led to the surge seen in gaming and entertainment. This was supplemented with the number of active VC funds that continued to grow in 2020 to 520-525 nos and multiple new funds coming forward to investing like Inflection Point, Avataar, Coatue, D1 Capital, amongst others. 

In the healthtech, wellness space, companies like Cure Fit, online consultation (Practo, Docs App), and digital therapeutics (Biofourmis) were the top segments attracting investments. The e-pharmacies witnessed VC traction in terms of majority stakes by corporates while 1MG got investment from the Tata Group and Netmeds controlling stake was bought by Reliance Retail.  

Overall, the strength of India’s VC ecosystem continues to drive real economic value – VC investments are playing a pivotal role in bolstering the start-up ecosystem with deeptech, healthtech, and edtech at the forefront.

Healthtech Scaleup with Collaborations

Healthtech Scaleup with Collaborations edtech education

  • August 6 2021
  • 5 mins

Healthtech Scaleup with Collaborations

Due to the pandemic, some significant shifts are accelerated globally, which pushed most businesses to go digital. It also exposed the situations whereby the economies have been underprepared to handle the pandemic and the impact reflected directly on the education system. The gap between bricks and mortar education and edtech was prevalent for more than a decade. Considering the corporate learning and development sector, the year 2020 was a game-changer. The employers realized the need and relevance to work from home and even learn from home. However, the realization was more at the learners level that their continuous learning is essential even to sustain the career.

The shift of the education ecosystem to the digital landscapes also needs alignment to the national education policy 2020 and creating a massive surge in technology adoption in the education sector. The current year 2021 is labelled as the change and evolution year of edtech whereby the whole institutional ecosystem has adopted a hybrid approach to learning. The world has still not been able to assess and evaluate the pandemic’s overall economic impact and repercussions. However, the careers of professionals are impacted, and unemployment did see an increased level. In turn, this undesirable phenomenon accelerated enrollment to career-oriented programs, reskilling and upskilling with technology.

However, the effects are more significant on unemployment levels, which did see an increase. This has led to an accelerated shift towards Career-oriented learning, up-skilling and reskilling using online platforms. The ubiquitous presence of mobile data and the scalability of high-quality learning using digital platforms enables better quality education. To be delivered across the length and breadth of this country.

People are now developing new skills through digital learning platforms by which the RoI can be measured, and they can secure better employment in the sectors of choice. Considering the players like Talentedge, Upgrad and Simplilearn that found a rush of candidates during the pandemic, the evolution of learning also needs to include practice-oriented digital transformation programs. The applications of AI and ML in EdTech are predicted to grow manifold, and these technologies can automate educational communications, assessments, evaluation feedback with experiential learning. Edtech ecosystems will see ever-growing AI adoption due to the phenomenal leap in nature of developmental programs.

There is a vast and unexplored area of the tech-led education world. In the last 4-5 years, the edtech sector has already attracted an excess of USD 4B of investment, of which Indian company Byju’s has become a global enterprise valued at more than USD 15B. Alongside Byju’s, the other major edtech companies Unacademy, UpGrad, Vedantu, Doubtnut et al. are also acquiring companies with synergies. It is evident that in less than the next decade, the Indian edtech opportunity of USD 30B might be possible. Many more companies are going to dig out ways to invent and implement solutions in education. To facilitate the enhancement and expansion of the edtech sector, MiraiNxt will play a pivotal role in developing their strategy and helping edtech ventures grow with the business and raise funds.