ZincMoney secures $25.5 million in seed funding to transform overseas education financing

ZincMoney, an Eduwealth startup, has secured $25.5 million in its seed funding round, led by Nexus Venture Partners, to advance its mission of helping Indian families financially prepare for the increasing costs of overseas education.

The company’s vision, described by Founder and CEO Prashanth Ranganathan, is to create a robust financial framework—called “Eduwealth”—to support families in navigating the complex financial needs associated with international education.

ZincMoney aims to address this issue by offering custom investment solutions, personalised financial counseling, and innovative technology-driven resources to enable families to better plan for their children’s education abroad.

Ranganathan emphasises that ZincMoney’s journey will be based out of India’s GIFT City in Gandhinagar, where the company has obtained an in-principle payment service provider license, enabling core banking services in partnership with established banks. “We have a payment service provider license and are working toward securing a brokerage and an NBFC (Non-Banking Financial Company) license,” he explained. These licenses will form the backbone of ZincMoney’s operations, with much of the new capital dedicated to establishing these financial capabilities. The company aims to offer a comprehensive banking infrastructure that allows families to save and invest specifically for education, bridging the gap between aspiration and affordability.

Beyond financial services, ZincMoney is building a large-scale, AI-powered counseling network, which is expected to launch soon. “Starting at the grassroots, we’re helping counselors with AI tools so they can deliver best-in-class information to students and parents,” Ranganathan shared. This approach will enable ZincMoney to assist students from a young age and aligning academic goals with parents’ financial planning.

This dual support for students and parents is designed to improve both financial preparedness and academic outcomes, ensuring that students have the resources they need to reach their chosen universities without financial barriers.

Eduwealth is a concept that reflects the unique financial challenges faced by aspiring Indian families in today’s globalized educational environment. “Eduwealth is a new space,” Ranganathan said, “and it’s an exciting time as India reaps its demographic dividend. We have a young, aspirational population where many parents want the best education for their children but are not financially prepared.” ZincMoney aims to alleviate the anxieties around financing higher education by guiding parents to start planning early and save in the appropriate currency, enabling them to accumulate the funds needed to afford a high-quality international education.

In a separate development, Mihup, a AI-driven conversation intelligence platform, has successfully raised ₹50 crore in its latest funding round, with participation from prominent public market investor Ashish Kacholia and the family office of Madhusudhan Kela, a notable ace investor.

The company plans to channel this capital toward advancing its research and development efforts, with a focus on enhancing the platform’s language capabilities, while also accelerating its revenue growth both domestically and internationally.

Commenting on the fund’s deployment, Mihup’s Co-Founder and CEO, Tapan Barman, highlighted that a significant portion of the investment will go towards boosting the platform’s R&D to broaden language support and adapt to various linguistic requirements. “Primarily, our intent is to deploy this fund to strengthen R&D. So we are going to add more language capabilities in the platform itself,” Barman said. He further explained that the company would focus on scaling its revenue without expanding the product range. “We are not thinking of having more applications on top of the platform, we’ll continue to scale with the current product lines we have in India and abroad.”

Mihup has set its sights on expanding to the US market, which it sees as a high-potential region for its conversation intelligence solutions. The company’s expansion plans will extend to Southeast Asia and the Middle East following its US entry. Barman described the US as a primary target market, where the company plans to dedicate its immediate focus, aiming to establish a strong foothold. “Currently, we are expanding to the US. So that’s our primary target market, which we’re going to attack other than India. After the US, we are looking at Southeast Asia and the Middle East. But the US is something we are looking at very deeply,” he said.

Financially, Mihup’s current annual recurring revenue (ARR) is $4-5 million. Barman revealed that the company has set an ambitious target to reach $10-15 million in ARR within the next 24 months. Notably, around 80% of this revenue is expected to stem from the Indian market, while international markets are projected to contribute around 20% as Mihup’s expansion gains traction.

Additionally, Mayank Banerjee, Co-Founder, Even Healthcare shared his insights on the company’s recent Series A funding round of $30 billion. The round was led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from Founders Fund, 8VC and others. Since inception the company has raised total funding of $50 million.

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