Mumbai-based startup Purple Squirrel Eduventures is an ed-tech company founded in September 2013

After a certain stage, some startups are not able to maintain the pace of growth due to various reasons. Recently, a Mumbai-based ed-Tech startup Purple Squirrel Eduventures backed by Matrix was shut down due to dipping sales and rising expenditure. It has overall raised $300,000 in two rounds of funding. Aditya Gandhi and Sahiba Dhandhania are the founders of this company. Purple Squirrel aimed to build a unique educational platform for students to tour industries, one-day workshops across the country created on the basis of their curriculum, guiding them towards a better career. By making them understand and visualize real-time industrial examples, Purple Squirrel pushes the students to develop in their desired field.

Initially, the startup received an investment of Rs. 12 crore, but failed to reach the target of Rs.30 crore. Lack of investors to pour money when it was needed was one of the biggest reasons of failure. Facing layoffs and resignations were the indications of the startup to collapse. The most important factor of the breakdown was the falling sales. The startup shifted towards a model of offering tours to students, that too failed to perform in the long run. Recurring expenses of Rs. 1.2 crore every month dried up the startup funds, leaving Rs.3 crores only.

Offering industrial visits with trips and workshops proved to be a useful program for students as they can learn and explore a lot of unexpected aspects associated with their syllabus. In just a year, the startup has offered more than 5000+unique learning experience to students with 350 corporate campus visits in more than 12 different locations. It has tied up with 70 colleges to connect with 8,000 students.

Earlier in 2015, Smarton, an ed-tech venture was closed down due to long sales cycle, dependence on educational institutes owners and immature consumer market.

Takeaways:

• Mumbai- based ed-tech startup Purple Squirrel shuts down due to lack of funding, falling sales and rising expenses.
• The startup failed to reach the target of Rs.30 crore in 2015-16, after receiving fundings of Rs.12 crore at the intial stage.