Sixth Sense Ventures-backed Toprankers buys career guidance firm ProBano

By Malvika Maloo

  • 17 Apr 2023
From L-R: Harsh Gagrani, Aditya Bose, Karan Mehta and Gaurav Goel | Credit: Toprankers

Toprankers, an edtech platform for careers beyond engineering and medical, on Monday said it has bought career guidance platform ProBano in a cash-and-stock deal, marking its foray into career discovery and guidance segment.

However, the financial details of the transactions were not disclosed.

Toprankers, which counts consumer-focused venture capital firm Sixth Sense Ventures as its investor, was launched by Gaurav Goel, Karan Mehta and Harsh Gagrani in 2014.

It provides a platform for competitive exam aspirants opting for careers beyond engineering and medical fields, including management, common universities entrance test, law, judiciary and design and architecture exams.

“Leveraging ProBano's expertise in career guidance and counselling, we will help the next 10 lakh to 1 crore high school students explore different career options, discover their passion, and pursue it,” said Goel, chief executive officer and co-founder of Toprankers.

ProBano helps India’s high school students–aged 13-18–make informed career choices and develop the necessary skills to achieve their career goals. It claims to have counselled over 30,000 students across 24 states.

With the acquisition, Toprankers looks to leverage ProBano’s expertise in designing its career discovery and experience platform, aiming to become a full-stack career platform, it said in a statement.

ProBano’s team, along with the chief executive Aditya Bose, will join Toprankers’ team as a part of the deal. Bose will be acting as product owner - career discovery and experience at Toprankers.

“ProBano's mission has always been to help students across India to make informed career choices and start building the skills needed to succeed,” said Bose. 

In 2022, Toprankers raised $4 million from Sixth Sense Ventures. 

As per Impact Investors Council’s report, the edtech sector recorded a 39% decline in funding last year to $423 million from $785 million in 2021. It further said that edtech firms are focusing on integrating technology with offline play, diverging from the earlier mantra of simply digitizing content delivery.