Education and placement company EdServ has signed a letter of intent (LoI) to acquire Hyderabad-based SchoolMATE [school management at ease], a CRM (customer relationship management) and ERP (enterprise resources planning) software solution provider for schools.
SchoolMATE also has a college management module called CollegeMATE.
The acquisition is in line with EdServ's strategy to provide industry demand-aligned education (IDEA) through the progressive learning model (PLM) for school students via its Vidhyadhana Academy. It is also in consonance with its overall plan to expand its presence into over 250 schools, says a release from EdServ.
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EdServ’s offerings to schools through the Vidhyadhana Academy includes, among others, academic, school management and student performance management support services. Through these services, EdServ provides multi-dimensional skill development, leading to industry orientation of these students at K-12 itself.
Through the acquisition of SchoolMATE, EdServ’s Vidhyadhana Academy will have overall points of presence in over 100 schools, including 30 schools that it has already signed up since its launch in November 2009.
According to S. Giridharan, Chairman and CEO of EdServ, the enterprise value of SchoolMate is Rs. 4crore. SchoolMATE does revenues of Rs.1.5crore annually and has 40 people. It has 70 schools across Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka as its customers.
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SchoolMate was founded in 2005 by K. Harikrishnan and Ravindra Vytla (both engineers from BITS Pilani). Mr. Giridharan said EdServ would acquire the entire business along with the people and the intellectual property. He expected the entire deal to be consummated in the next 30-45 days. To a question, he said SchoolMate would eventually be integrated into EdServ's Vidhyadhana Academy as the education ERP provided synergy with what Vidhyadhana Academy was planning to do.
The acquisition would enable the implementation of a progressive learning model in the Vidhyadhana-run schools, where the company would improve the technology infrastructure, teacher empowerment and support at classes, and the overall student performance enhancement through tracking and analysing every individual student, he pointed out.