How Embibe aims to score higher with 100Marks in its bag

Edtech startup Embibe, which focuses on competitive entrance test preparation, has announced the acquisition of its rival 100Marks.

Entrance exams, especially the JEE (Joint Entrance Examination) for the prestigious IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology), are almost a matter of life and death in India. Most parents drill the importance of scoring high marks at the JEE, and insist on their children preparing for tests well in advance. Millions of students enroll for extra tuition classes and coaching classes specifically for JEE. So obviously, test preparation is a huge industry in India.

It’s a US$7 billion market, according to Sid Talwar, a parter at Lightbox – the VC firm backing Embibe.

Embibe’s acquisition of 100Marks, a cash plus stock deal, appears to be a good marriage as the strengths of the two startups are complementary.

Embibe promises to improve a student’s score by using data analytics and other technology. Its tech mettle measures critical exam performance metrics like speed, accuracy, time management, and confidence to spot the weaknesses of the student and collaborates with students, parents, and teachers to rectify those. The Mumbai-based startup, founded in 2012, has developed 15 different elements for marks improvement.

In an earlier interview with Tech in Asia, Talwar gave an example of how Embibe’s technology works.

Every question in the JEE is weighted the same. Let’s say you have 60 minutes to answer 60 questions, and every right answer will get you one point. No question will give you two points. No matter how difficult or easy the question, the marks are all equal. “Some people see a question, think they know the answer, and instead of spending the entire minute on it, they spend 25 seconds. If you spend less than 40 seconds on a question you had one minute to answer, and you get it wrong, what a waste! You could have got it right if you had spent enough time on it,” points out Talwar. “We call it wasted attempt. Offline, we could never tell why you got it wrong, we could never figure out that you spent just 25 seconds on a question you had one minute to solve. Now I can tell you that if you had spent enough time on that question, you might have got it right.”

Fixing that alone can improve a student’s score.

Meanwhile, 100Marks focuses on resolving doubts for students preparing for competitive exams. 100Marks guides students through gamified adaptive practice and provides exam news and updates.

Together, Embibe and 100Marks had over 4 million unique visitors last year.

“In acquiring 100Marks, we’ve not only welcomed India’s most respected and prompt JEE prep guidance platform to the Embibe family, we’ve also been fortunate to add two extremely committed young entrepreneurs to our team,” Aditi Avasthi, founder and CEO of Embibe, says in a statement announcing the acquisition. “Both Embibe and 100Marks share a common vision of helping students score higher, and it was only logical for the two to come together in an effort to create the strongest platform for test prep in India,” 100Marks founder Pradeep Kumar adds.

Test prep is a space where a tech startup can scale up fast. Embibe aims to do just that by adding a robust question bank and guide from 100Marks to the intelligent test-taking tools on its platform.