[Funding alert] Sconto raises over INR 1 Cr in Pre-Seed Round

SCONTO, a student lifestyle, and discovery startup has raised €150K (over INR 1 Cr) in its pre seed funding round from European Angel Investor at a valuation of $2.5 million.

The startup plans to use the funds to start full-fledged operations in Kolkata, along with hiring new talent in its focus group to take the product forward.

Kolkata-based Sconto was founded in 2022 by Sourav Chakraborty, Sohang Sengupta and Luca Albanese, It is a revolutionary platform that aims to bridge the gap between the world's largest student tribe and businesses.

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“There are close to 40 million college/university students in India, but the lack of a centralized platform stops the national, international and local businesses to tap into this niche customer segment and curate offers for the larger student populace for building on their brand image and loyalty. This is also one of the major reasons why international entities like Unidays and SheerID failed to penetrate the Indian Market. Sourav and I were already accustomed and experienced in building dedicated communities as we had built India’s first and largest Cybersecurity Community, ZeroDollarSecurity, previously. So we believed this to be a brilliant opportunity to tap into the market and set the rules of the game”, said Sohang Sengupta, cofounder of Sconto.

The startup's app target market directly caters to a recurring subset of 500 million+ GenZ in India.

“India as a society is a beautiful amalgamation of culture, people and opportunity and considering that is an education heavy community there will only be a steady exponential increase in the enrolment of students into colleges as well as establishment of newer academic institutions facilitating the same over the years. With a college population bigger than a lot of countries across the globe, I believe we at SCONTO are empowering the communication between students and the businesses/brands thereby allowing an opportunity for businesses to build on their brand loyalties over time as the student progresses from academics to corporate life”, said Luca Albanese.

The founders of the startup with its 20-member strong team strongly believe that Sconto will transform and redefine the student lifestyle and quest for discounts in India.

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The platform is looking forward to raise its next round of investment to expand pan-India operations by December 2022.

About Sconto

Sconto is bridging the gap between the world’s largest student tribe and the businesses. With its unique KYS (know-your-students) technology, Sconto allows students to create their Digital Sconto IDs, verifies and authenticates the same and allows Hyper-local, National and international brands across all verticals to curate special discounts and offers for this niche segment online and in srtore. On the other hand students can discover, save, earn, and get rewarded with SCOINS for their purchases online, at home or on the move.