Singaporean edtech startup raises funding to help students score their dream studies

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Singapore-based education tech startup Cialfo has raised an undisclosed amount of pre-series A funding, it announced today. The funding comes from investors like notable Singaporean business and investment figure, Koh Boon Hwee, and founder and CEO of Govin Capital, Anand Govindaluri. Other angel investors with “significant experience in scaling high-growth businesses” also participated in the round.

Cialfo helps prospective students in Singapore choose the best university programs and aids them through the application process. It does that by combining an online platform with offline mentoring. The startup claims to place over 90 percent of its students in top 50 US and top 30 UK universities.

Outside of Singapore, Cialfo is working with private college counselors and high schools in China, Vietnam, and India. With the funding, which gives it a 12-month runway, the startup will create software-as-a-service for student consultancies.

See: 29 edtech startups across Southeast Asia

“Our China expansion showed us this is a very crowded space,” Cialfo co-founder and CEO, Rohan Pasari, tells Tech in Asia. “But in the last few months, earlier competitors like brick-and-mortar consultancies in Shanghai and Beijing saw they can become our clients.”

Such consultancies have experience and traction but are still working with pen and paper. Cialfo’s software offering can help them manage their student applications better and faster.

The startup will also double down on China with additional hires there (specifically in Shanghai and Beijing), and is working on plugging its software into WeChat to manage communication between students and consultants.

It will also hire a business development manager who will be responsible for cracking other markets in Asia.

Cialfo already has paid clients of its business-to-business platform, although Rohan will not confirm how many.

The bigger picture

This new direction for Cialfo is just another stepping stone toward its bigger vision – connecting the entire education ecosystem, according to Rohan.

“Our platform will start connecting all the players in one system,” he says. “We currently have consultants, students, and parents. The other players we want to add are high schools, universities, supplementary education providers.”

Cialfo’s algorithm currently guides students on what the best educational institution is for them. The startup wants to eventually provide students with insights from early on, telling them how best to shape their curriculum so they can go after the studies they want.

“There is no one platform trying to connect all these players in one system,” Rohan says. “Our algorithm is one of our biggest strengths.”