IProf India

iProf Learning Solutions.

Type	Private
Industry	Distance Education
Founded	2009
Founder	Sanjay Purohit
Area served	India
Number of employees	300 (2013)
Website	www.iprofindia.com

iProf Learning Solutions (commonly called iProf) is an Indian e-learning company headquartered in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. It is ranked India’s No.1 Android Education App as of April 2015. iProf was created in 2009 and has raised $15 million in venture capital funding.^[1]

Working with Kaplan, Indira Gandhi National Open University and Mumbai-based Sinhal Classes, iProf provides a platform of educational materials such as audio-video lectures, 3D animations and evaluative practice questions to prepare students for competitive national examinations for admissions into engineering, medical and management colleges and civil services programs.^[2] Students are able to download the preparatory content from retail hotspots called iStudy Zones. The company's approximately thirty centers have high performance servers with high speed broadband and Wi-Fi capabilities that allow courses to be downloaded securely. The iStudyZones also host video conferences for doubt clearing sessions between renowned professors and students.

Lowe Lintas, one of India's leading communication groups, provides creative business services to the firm, contributing to its marketing and branding.^[3] In 2011, venture capital firms Norwest Venture Partners and IDG Ventures made investments worth 220 million rupees to help expand iProf centers and facilitate its entry into an education market valued to be approaching one billion dollars.^[4]

Background

iProf's current CEO, Sanjay Purohit, an Indian Institute of Technology Bombay post graduate and gold medalist from Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, left his position as the managing director of a New York based business transformation firm and moved back to India to create the opportunity for students to get an adequate education despite the lack of good instructors and limited classroom programs in tier two and tier three cities in the country.^[5] The iProf platform does not require students to have computer or internet access, allowing the preparatory program to popularly penetrate through a country with limited broadband services and six million students who currently don't have access to prep classes.^[6]

Courses and Partners

IITJEE and AIEEE

iProf specializes in IITJEE and AIEEE courses for undergraduate admission into the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology. The content is created by Kaysons Education which received recognition as India's best IIT-JEE E-learning Preparatory Course in June 2011.^[7]

AIPMT

Developed by university medical professors, AIPMT test prep and digitized text for reference reading are created to aid students in medical school entrance examinations.^[8]

CAT

IIM Lucknow alumni prepare the video lectures and animation content for the Common Admission Test.

IAS

The Civil Services preparatory material is created by IAS Elites, one of India's leading coaching institutes for Indian Administrative Service preparation.^[9] Hundred of students coached by IAS Elites faculties have been selected for Indian Civil Services.

ENGLISH

iProf has tied up with Words Worth, an English Language Lab to help users achieve proficiency in the language using a visual platform and instructor lead training animations.

GMAT

Washington Post's Kaplan Ventures announced an investment of $1.2 million and a distribution partnership with iProf Learning Solutions to offer test preparation in GMAT and GRE in May 2011.^[10]

ICSE/CBSE

Mumbai-based Sinhal Classes provide Physics, Chemistry, Maths and Biology coaching for 10th grade board examinations. Sinhal’s students have topped ICSE board 23 times out of last 24 years in Mumbai^[11] and their professors created the 2D and 3D animations, as well as the practice tests now on the iProf platform.^[12]

iProf Study Buddy

iProf's Study Buddy is India's number one mobile education app, based on the number of downloads. It provides thousands of course materials for download. In April 2015, it crossed a million downloads.^[13]

The DigiLibrary

On August 30, 2012, iProf launched India's first digital library, TheDigiLibrary.com. Investing about a million dollars in the project, it promises to 24X7 teacher on call and offline availability of courses. The DigiLibrary offers comprehensive education material for preparation of important competitive exams like engineering (IIT JEE), AIPMT, CAT, IAS, XI, XII and CA CPT, which would be scaled up to include courses for other grades of KG to XII. The course content includes video lectures of highly respected teachers accessible by the students, the company claims. The DigiLibrary users are also supported 24x7 by a panel of teachers for clarifying all the doubts connected via phone or computer.^[14]

Technology

iProf’s proprietary content can be accessed on all Android powered tablets but the company sells tablets as well. The majority of iProf consumers in 2011 used an iProf, Reliance Communications, HCL Technologies Limited or Samsung tablets. iProf's own tablets are 7-Inch touchscreens with Wifi abilities, 8Gb storage that run on the Android operating system.^[15]

References