The Unyielding Journey of Aman Singh and Sasidhar Sista: Founders of GradRight

Roots in Education: The Formative Years of Two Visionaries

Aman Singh’s foray into the education space was preceded by a strong engineering and business background. An alumnus of IIT-Delhi and ISB Hyderabad, he has close to two decades of experience in designing futuristic learning spaces. 

The Founding Project Director at Ashoka University, 2007-2015, he was instrumental in founding one of India's first liberal arts colleges. Outside the realm of Ashoka, Aman's legacy can be seen in the founding of universities such as Krea, Atria and Plaksha – all of which embody his passion for combining strong academics with holistic development. Outside the classroom, his practice of yoga, rooted in the Bihar School of Yoga traditions, provided a personal anchor amid professional demands.

Sasidhar Sista complemented this drive with a global perspective on higher education. He studied Master’s in Higher Education Management at the University of Pennsylvania as India’s first Fulbright-Nehru Scholar and researched international best practices in 2016. Having spent more than ten years of his career in the education sector, Sasidhar is co-founder of REN Projects, a strategic consulting and project management firm for educational initiatives. 

His expertise in operations and student success became the operational backbone for future endeavours, honed through hands-on work that bridged policy, practice, and people.

Their individual paths, rich with academic rigour and practical insights, converged in 2012 on the founding team of Ashoka University. They traveled widely in India, West Asia and Southeast Asia and were exposed to a multitude of educational systems and so had the seeds of a shared mission.

Breaking the Taboo: Tackling Invisible Barriers In Higher Education

The idea for GradRight came from candid, unfiltered learnings from their time at Ashoka University.Interacting with thousands of students and parents, Aman and Sasidhar witnessed the stark disconnect between ambitious academic dreams and the harsh realities of financing. High-quality programs, especially in liberal arts and international studies, came with escalating costs—private undergraduate degrees in India often ranging from Rs 15 lakh to Rs 40 lakh annually. Yet, access to suitable loans remained opaque, with information asymmetry leaving many "middle-order" students—those neither at the top nor bottom of the socioeconomic spectrum—stranded.

Personal encounters with student loan complexities deepened this resolve. Conventional methods for applying were labyrinthine: long processes with eligibility criteria that didn’t always line up, and banks losing candidates partway through to competitors. 

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In the crisis was mirrored India's; the United States struggled under $1.75 trillion in education debt by 2022, topping credit card and robocall loans, and the U.K.’s figure reached $140 billion by 2020. In India, as the government sought to double the Gross Enrollment Ratio from 25% to 50% in the next 10 years, education loans were expected to increase from Rs 1.12 lakh crore to Rs 9 lakh crore.

Aman and Sasidhar recognized a pressing demand for a solution that gave students greater transparency and choice, leveraging data science to match profiles with the best funding solutions.

This realisation, born from empathy and expertise, transformed into a clear vision: to democratise higher education by bridging students, lenders, counsellors, and universities on a unified platform. No longer would financial hurdles dictate educational destinies.

Launching into the Unknown: Building GradRight Amidst Uncertainty

In 2019, GradRight was born as an edtech solution for this gap. The centerpiece product, FundRight, featured an innovative loan bidding system where the lenders bid for the well-qualified borrowers, potentially reducing the interest rates and processing time from 30-45 days to 3-4 days. Complementing it was SelectRight, a data-driven tool evaluating program costs, returns on investment, and fundability to guide informed decisions.

The early days required solid groundwork. Working with design studio Quicksand, the pair undertook comprehensive research with students, educators, bankers and donors. It surfaced pain points such as last-minute applications and disjointed systems, and helped inform a user-centric design for the platform. Launching in November 2019, GradRight quickly attracted users from over 1,000 Indian cities, processing initial loan requests that underscored its potential.

Yet, inception brought its share of entrepreneurial grit. Bootstrapping required balancing innovation with sustainability, as the team of 12 navigated regulatory nuances in fintech and edtech intersections. They were well-networked from their previous stints at Ashoka, but getting used to the scrappiness of a startup put them through a test of endurance.

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Weathering the Storm: The COVID-19 Test of Endurance

No journey unfolds smoothly, and GradRight's path crashed into an insurmountable hurdle in 2020. The pandemic led to widespread postponement of study abroad plans and domestic enrollments, freezing up loan demand. Students, confronted with economic uncertainty, put service priorities on hold, stranding the fledgling platform.

Aman and Sasidhar responded with strategic resiliency. The team took pay cuts to conserve capital, refocusing on building stronger ties with banks and non-banking financial companies. Virtual engagement ramped up, and internal resources were being redirected to ready the platform infrastructure for a post-crisis recovery. Demand built up by October 2020, when restrictions were eased. That time of trial hardened their operational resilience and not only that but also brought out the value prop of the platform – where transparency in tumultuous times became a lifeline.

GradRight went on to achieve exponential growth coming out of this trial: monthly loan applications increased 76% by April 2021, with total loans applied for amounting over Rs 1,600 crore and disbursals over Rs 150 crore. More than 5,000 students signed up and it validated the founders belief that technology could help navigate a crisis.

Momentum Building: Milestones and Expansive Reach

The post-pandemic acceleration took GradRight to a phase of absurdly crazy scaling. Raising Rs 8 crore in a Pre-Series A round enabled the product upgrades and team growth from 12 to 45 employees. In recognition, it was named the most innovative fintech in higher education financing by HSBC and the Indian government.

Partnerships have blossomed with 22+ test preparation and counselling companies (serving 1 lakh students), and with 50+ institutions across the US, Canada and Europe. In 2023, Rs 50 crore Series A infusion from IvyCap Ventures signalled confidence to explore international opportunities in emerging markets such as Vietnam, Africa and the Middle East. Requests processed exceeded $2 billion to help more than 60,000 students, and the team grew to more than 200 graduates from top-tier schools.

These are the results of relentless iteration: Adding AI to do credit assessments based on academic merit, inventing new financing products, extending platform capabilities. The focus of their visionary leadership, was scalability of impact, each step forward robustly reflecting their foundational ethos.

A Horizon of Hope: The Enduring Vision for Global Equity

The GradRight story is arguably the most dynamic representation of commitment to equity. Aman and Sasidhar dream of a world where no student compromises on quality education due to financial limitations and more power mobility based on merit. Their platform matures beyond lending into a complete ecosystem leveraging blockchain and AI to simplify global payments and customize options.

The pair are now on track to help one million students by 2025, with ambitions to tap into unserved markets where education dreams outpace infrastructure. Challenges remain — changing regulations, economic upheavals and the requirement for more inclusive data models — but they have a proven ability to pivot that instills confidence.

The story of Aman Singh and Sasidhar Sista is a testament to the transformative value of purpose-driven entrepreneurship. From Ashoka University to a global stage, they are examples to us all that true innovation results not from working in isolation, but addressing the hidden pain points of many. When it comes to reimagining the way we finance higher education, they still serve as beacons for the next generation to follow.