Matrix-backed Jodo raises $15M in Series A led by Tiger Global

9th August, 2022. Bengaluru: Jodo, a fintech in the educational payments space, announced its Series A funding of $15M led by Tiger Global. The round also saw participation from existing investors, Matrix Partners India and Elevation Capital from whom Jodo has previously raised $4M.

Jodo was founded in 2020 by Atulya Bhat, Raghav Nagarajan & Koustav Dey who believe deeply in the power of contextual financial products. They decided to start Jodo when they noticed that many households face difficulty when paying education fees due to the lack of flexible payment options available.

Jodo's first set of offerings is a suite of specialised payment and lending products to make fee payments convenient & affordable for parents of students while making fee collection hassle-free for educational institutes. The company is currently focused on catering to the private education sector, a high-value $100B+ annual spend category without the right financial products.

The funding will be used to accelerate product innovation & sales, and further grow the Jodo team.

The Jodo founders said "Education fee payments, one of the most important & high-value spend categories, has seen little innovation & is lagging in digitization. At Jodo, we have built industry-first payment & lending products grounds-up keeping the requirements of parents, students and educational institutes in focus. With this capital, we will double down on the momentum and continue to bring innovative financial products to market. We are thrilled to have Tiger Global join us in the journey, and thank Matrix Partners India and Elevation Capital for their continued support."

Payment solutions specific to education fee collections are the need of the hour. The last couple of years, through the pandemic, has been a difficult time for institutes and parents alike. Fee realisation has been low for institutes as they have not been able to offer multiple payment plans catering to the varying needs of parents. With Jodo's products, institutes are able to offer multiple flexible payment options while increasing their fee realisation and digitising the entire collection process.

Jodo's products currently power fee collection for 700+ educational institutes and have facilitated fee payments for over 100K+ students. Their solutions ensure a seamless fee experience for both schools and parents. Institutes are able to get a predictable inflow of payments, improve collection efficiency and decrease the fee collection window. On the other hand, parents can pay fees in a schedule that is most convenient.

Jodo is poised to be a leader in the education payments space having grown 10X year on year since its founding, with its products being adopted at a rapid pace.

"We're believers in the vertical payments + fin services opportunity - every industry and market participant has adopted digital payments and digital ways of working. Jodo is poised to be a leader in vertical payments, integrating business workflows and finance, starting with education payments. We're delighted to reinvest to deepen our partnership with Atulya, Koustav & Raghav and welcome Tiger Global to the partnership", commented Vikram Vaidyanathan, Managing Director, Matrix India

Alex Cook, Partner, Tiger Global said, "Jodo is modernizing payments and credit for India's education market by increasing convenience and affordability for parents and providing a better workflow for schools and institutions. We are very impressed with Jodo's progress and are excited to partner with them as they expand the product suite and become available at more schools.'

Mridul Arora, Partner, Elevation Capital said "We're privileged to renew our partnership with Atulya, Koustav and Raghav. The enthusiasm with which their products have been adopted by schools and parents alike proves that not only are they solving a deep pain point, but that they are doing so through tech-first solutions that are intuitive to use. We wish them all the best in the next phase of their journey.'

About Jodo:
Jodo is a mission-oriented high-growth fintech startup building payment & lending products to simplify education payments. Jodo's suite of products makes education payments convenient & affordable for parents while simplifying & streamlining fee collections for educational institutes. Jodo's founders, Atulya Bhat, Raghav Nagarajan & Koustav Dey, are alumni of IIT & IIM and have deep experience in financial services (ex-Nomura, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Barclays, Edelweiss Capital)

About Elevation Capital:
Elevation Capital is a leading venture capital firm which provides seed and early stage capital for emerging companies in India. Elevation Capital has been investing in India since 2002 deploying almost $2 billion of capital in over 150 companies. The firm announced its eighth pool of capital of $670 million in April 2022. The firm is led by Co-Managing Partners Ravi Adusumalli and Mukul Arora, along with three Managing Directors Mridul Arora, Deepak Gaur and Mayank Khanduja. The firm has invested in over 150 companies across Consumer Internet, SaaS, Fintech, Consumer Brands, Edtech, Healthtech and Web3/Crypto, and has offices in Bengaluru, Gurgaon and Salt Lake City.

About Matrix Partners India:
Founded in 2006, the firm invests in companies targeting the Indian consumer and enterprise market at the seed, early and early growth stages. Matrix India has invested in several market leading financial services companies, such as, Razorpay (payments and SME Neobank), OfBusiness (B2B Commerce, Fintech), Five Star Business Finance (SME lending), Mswipe (mobile POS), OneCard (mobile-first credit card), LiquiLoans (P2P lending), Jupiter (consumer neobank) and dezerv. (new-age expert investing platform).

Other marquee investments include Ola (mobility), Dailyhunt (mobile local language platform), Ola Electric (electric vehicles), Stanza Living (tech enabled student housing platform), DealShare (social commerce platform), MoEngage (SaaS), Country Delight (D2C dairy & fresh foods brand), Captain Fresh (seafood marketplace), GoKwik (e-commerce enablement platform), Bijnis (B2B platform for factories), Zupee (leading skill-based gaming app) and Oxyzo (a tech-enabled smart financing solution provider) among others. Matrix India has advisory offices in Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai. Matrix Partners has a global network of funds investing in the US, China and India, with approximately $5 billion under management. Further information is available at www.matrixpartners.in. To know more about our investment philosophy, check out the #MatrixMoments podcast series.