Zenda, announced that it has secured a $9.4 million in a seed round with participation from STV, COTU, Global Founders Capital, and VentureSouq. Zenda currently addresses the payment issues of school fees the lack of convenience and flexibility in payment options for parents and the poor collection of payments for schools. The funds will be used for product development and market expansion in India. With about $70 billion processed annually in fee payments to private educational institutions in India, $37 billion in the GCC, and $34 billion in the rest of Middle East and Africa, the market is sizable, yet largely untapped. Fee payments in schools (nurseries – K12 – tertiary) are significantly non-digital, and even where digital, cumbersome, manual, and expensive. Also, most families earn monthly but fee payments are usually termly or bi-annual, resulting in cash flow stress for parents and collection delays for schools.
Zenda was founded in June 2021 by Raman Thiagarajan and Haseeb Ahmed, alumni of McKinsey & Company, where Raman led the Firm’s Financial Services Practice in the MENA region. Zenda is the founders’ second start-up and leverages deep insights and knowledge from their successful previous ed-tech venture. With more than 40 team members now, and 2/3rds in India, the team has scaled rapidly, operating out of Bengaluru, Kochi, Delhi, and Dubai. Zenda’s success is also attributable to the team’s expertise and deep insights into how educational institutions operate, from their earlier venture.