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The AI-powered admissions startup, Ambitio, has announced a $2 million seed funding round led by BLinC Invest, with participation from Ritu Bapna (Co-founder, Impetus), along with a few soonicorn founders and angel investors from the UK and India.
Founded by IIT-BHU graduates Dirghayu Kaushik and Vikrant Shivalik, Ambitio is India's first AI-driven admissions platform. It combines intelligence from past applicants with insights from alumni experts to offer students a highly personalized admissions experience.
Ambitio leverages over 10 million data points to generate intelligent, tailored insights for each student, while also providing access to admission experts for one-on-one guidance. The platform takes pride in its student-first approach, distinguishing itself from traditional study abroad consultants. With no gimmicks, no university partnerships, and a commitment to transparency, Ambitio focuses solely on helping students secure admissions to the best institutions worldwide.
The company plans to invest in technology to provide students with the best possible experience and scale their distribution channels. In the next two years, the company plans to help over 500,000 students access global education.
"Students spend more than 300 hours just researching and applying to their target universities," says Dirghayu Kaushik, Co-founder and CEO of Ambitio. He added, "The entire admissions process is a maze, especially for international applicants. The market is crowded with biased consultants pushing students toward their partnered universities. Information online is scattered and unreliable. Ambitio brings reliability and expertise in a personalized fashion, improving your odds by more than 5-fold to get into top universities."
With the help of AI, Ambitio analyzes over 1 million successful applications to create a personalized strategy, and matches students to the best-fit universities using real admission data.
Ambitio uses their proprietary matching algorithm, trained on 50,000+ university programs. It pinpoints schools that align with a student's academic achievements, career goals, and interests, which leads to higher acceptance rates, better opportunities, and a smarter path forward.
Vikrant Shivalik, COO and Co-Founder at Ambitio explains "Our students have secured admits in top colleges like Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, and Oxford, and dozens of top universities. There is a science to cracking such top admits, I can say that with utmost confidence. At Ambitio, we believe we have cracked a code that actually works for every student." He adds "It's all about strategy—building a profile that stands out, making the right choices, and getting every detail right. We built Ambitio to give students the best shot at their dream schools, based on merit, and not partnerships.
Amit Ratanpal, Founder and Managing Director at BLinC Invest says, "We are thrilled to partner with Ambitio, as their student-centric approach—focused on personalized guidance to help students find their best-fit colleges—resonates with the findings of BLinC Invest's latest Study Abroad Report, which emphasizes that a learner-first, outcome-based approach leads to better career success."
