The CollegeDekho Story — Building India’s College Admissions Marketplace

Every year, millions of Indian students finish Class 12 with the same question:
“Ab kaunsa college?”

What looks like a simple decision is actually one of the most confusing journeys in a student’s life. Entrance exams, cut-offs, forms, counselling, loans, hostels, career confusion — the process is messy, fragmented and stressful.

In 2015, two founders decided to fix this chaos.

This is the story of CollegeDekho .

The Beginning — A Problem Seen First-Hand

CollegeDekho was founded by Ruchir Arora and Rohit Sahu .

Before starting CollegeDekho, both founders were already working in the education and internet ecosystem. They had seen how students and parents struggled during admission season. The problem wasn’t lack of colleges — India has thousands of them. The real problem was lack of reliable guidance and access .

Students from metro cities had some exposure, coaching centres, and counsellors.
But students from Tier 2, Tier 3 and Tier 4 cities were mostly navigating blind.

Most admission decisions were based on:

• Relatives’ suggestions

• Coaching centre recommendations

• Random internet searches

• Or pure guesswork

The founders realised something powerful:

India didn’t have a centralised platform for college discovery and admissions.

Just like people search and compare flights or hotels online, students needed a marketplace to discover and compare colleges.

That insight became CollegeDekho.

Launching the Platform (2015)

CollegeDekho started as a college discovery platform .

The early idea was simple:
Create a place where students could:

• Discover colleges

• Compare courses

• Understand admission processes

• Get counselling support

But the founders quickly realised that information alone wasn’t enough.
Students didn’t just want data. They wanted guidance and hand-holding.

So the platform evolved from content  counselling  full admissions marketplace

Early Challenges — Trust Was the Biggest Barrier

Education is a high-trust category.
Parents don’t easily trust online platforms when it comes to their child’s future.

In the early days, the team faced three major challenges:

1) Building trust with students & parents

Convincing families to take counselling from an online platform was difficult. Many people still preferred physical agents and consultants.

2) Building relationships with colleges

Universities were used to traditional admission channels. Convincing them to partner with a tech platform took time.

3) The scale of India’s education ecosystem

India has thousands of colleges across states, languages and entrance exams. Standardising this information was a massive task.

But slowly, year after year, the network started building.

 

The Big Shift — From Content Platform to Marketplace

This is where CollegeDekho made a smart strategic move.

Instead of staying just a content website, they built a full admissions marketplace .

Their services expanded into:

• Student counselling

• Lead generation for universities

• University partnerships

• Education loans

• Test preparation

• Study abroad services

They moved from being a website to becoming an end-to-end admissions ecosystem.

This shift changed the scale of the business.

Funding Journey

As the platform gained traction, investors started noticing the opportunity in the education marketplace.

CollegeDekho raised funding from well-known investors including:

• GirnarSoft (CarDekho’s parent company) — early backing

• Winter Capital

• ETS Strategic Capital (USA) — the organisation behind TOEFL & GRE

• Man Capital

• Other global investors

The company has raised tens of millions of dollars across funding rounds.

The entry of ETS was especially important because it strengthened CollegeDekho’s global and study-abroad ambitions.

Growth — Riding India’s Education Boom

India has one of the largest student populations in the world.
Every year:

• 250M+ students in the education system

• Millions enter higher education annually

CollegeDekho positioned itself right at this massive intersection.

Over time the platform grew into:

• Millions of monthly student visitors

• Partnerships with 1000+ colleges and universities

• Thousands of counselling sessions daily during peak admission season

What started as a website slowly became a national admissions engine.

Geographic Expansion — Serving Bharat

One of the biggest strengths of CollegeDekho is its reach beyond metros.

They operate across multiple Indian cities including:

• Delhi NCR

• Jaipur

• Bangalore

• Mumbai

• Pune

• Hyderabad

• Kolkata

• Lucknow

• Patna

• Indore

• Bhopal

• Chandigarh

• And many more Tier 2 & Tier 3 markets

This Bharat-first approach became a key growth driver.

Because the biggest need for guidance existed outside metro cities.

 

How Big CollegeDekho Is Today

Today CollegeDekho has evolved into a full-stack higher education services platform.

Their ecosystem includes:

• College admissions marketplace

• Career counselling services

• Education loan facilitation

• Study abroad support

• Online test preparation

The platform serves millions of students every year during admission cycles.

It sits at the centre of one of India’s most important life decisions — choosing a career path.

 

What Makes This Story Special

CollegeDekho didn’t create a new industry.
They organised a broken and fragmented ecosystem.

They digitised:

• Discovery

• Counselling

• Admissions

• Financing

And turned it into a scalable business.

The Bigger Lesson

The success of CollegeDekho shows a classic India startup playbook:

Find a massive, chaotic market.
Bring trust and structure using technology.
Build a marketplace that connects supply and demand.

From helping confused students search colleges…
To becoming a nationwide admissions platform.

That’s the CollegeDekho journey.