Kaplan Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of US-based education provider Kaplan, is understood to have invested about $1m in iProf Learning Solutions India as part of a distribution partnership to help the portfolio company offer test preparation for US business or graduate schools.
Last month, IDG Ventures India, a corporate venturing unit of US publisher International Data Group, and venture capital firm Norwest Venture Partners joined a consortium investing R22 crore ($5m) in iProf. The total round is now about $6m, although Kaplan declined to say how much it had invested.
There are nearly 20 of iProf’s iStudy Zones, which is expected to increase to 100 by the end of the year, and the company is India’s first and largest e-learning superstore for IIT, CAT, PMT and other high-stakes tests on tablet computers.
Sanjay Purohit, founder and chief executive of iProf, said: "From today, a student living in Patiala or Patna will have equal opportunity to prepare for admissions into Harvard or Stanford as one living in Mumbai or Manhattan. The iProf platform combined with Kaplan’s content will make it possible for a student who cannot attend a classroom course to prepare for these high-stakes admissions exams to make his or her dream come true. Kaplan has transformed the test preparation in US over the [past] 70 years and with this partnership we aim to replicate the same success story in India."
Jason Palmer, senior vice-president of Kaplan Ventures, which previously backed Wuhan New Channel School in China in 2006 as well as two deals in the US, said: "India provides the second-largest number of international students to US universities, and more Indian universities are now accepting the GMAT and GRE [tests] as well."
He added by email: "iProf is our first minority investment in India, but Kaplan has had a presence in the country for about five years stemming from an earlier acquisition – over time that office has grown to become a 200 person BPO [business process outsourcing] office for us (Kaplan India) and we also have a successful partnership with a local education provider named The Chopras, which delivers classroom test prep for GMAT, GRE and American Medical exams at more than 15 different locations across India (also for about the past five years)."