Naveen Goyal

Your University's Ambition Is Growing. So Is the World Around It. This was the central theme of my talk at the #ETEducation Chancellors' Conclave 2026 in Goa, where I had the opportunity to share our perspective on Building Universities for Tomorrow. Universities are built for decades, not just the next few years. And at the heart of every institution is ambition - to grow, offer better education, attract great faculty, improve student outcomes and build a stronger institution. But look at what's happening around that ambition. India's higher education GER is around 30%, with a national aspiration to reach 50% by 2035. Even a five-percentage-point increase could mean roughly 50 lakh more learners entering higher education - opening opportunities for new programmes, campuses, flexible learning pathways and entirely new education models. At the same time, education is evolving. AI-native learners have different expectations. AI is unlocking new possibilities. Competition is becoming global. And regulation, data privacy and cybersecurity are demanding greater responsibility. The opportunity is extraordinary. So is the complexity. And all of this is happening at once. Which brings us to a fundamental question: Can we build tomorrow's universities on yesterday's technology? Over the years, institutions have digitised functions. These systems have served their purpose somewhat. But what it takes to build a university for the next decade is fundamentally different from what it took 10–15 years ago. Technology should never become the ceiling on a university's ambition. It should be the foundation that makes bigger ambitions possible. Imagine a university where launching new programmes, opening campuses, personalising student experiences or improving institutional governance isn't constrained by technology. Where institutional data, knowledge and processes come together to create One Intelligence for the Entire University - an Institution Brain that can understand, predict, recommend and act. A shift from systems that simply record what happened to systems that help institutions decide what to do next. At Meritto | NoPaperForms, this is the future we are working towards — Building the Intelligence Era of Education. It was a pleasure sharing these thoughts and engaging with university founders, chancellors and education leaders shaping India's higher education future. The next decade belongs to universities that start building tomorrow, today. #ETChancellorsConclave Meritto

How does an industry grow together? How can we understand the industry’s pain points better, help each other solve them, and make things a little better every day? Meeting like-minded people, exchanging experiences, and taking back the energy to do more and better for everyone in the ecosystem - that’s what the Founders’ Table by Meritto is all about. We’re loving this journey, city by city - an informal setup over dinner, bringing founders together for open conversations, shared learnings, and a common desire to move the industry forward. Today, the Founders’ Table is in Jaipur. Looking forward to another evening of great conversations.

Friday’s Founder Dinner by Meritto in Chennai brought back some special memories. Chennai has always had a special place in our journey. Our first account came from here. We spent countless days staying close to our client university, building alongside them, learning from them, and understanding the market from the ground up. It was also the city where we placed our first senior leader to build a regional office outside our head office. What started with a few relationships grew into a strong region thanks to customers who trusted us early, scaled with us, and are still with us today, and to our local champions who built the market with incredible ownership. Thank you, Chennai, for all the love over the years. And thank you to our partners for the conversations, warmth, trust, and the special bond we continue to share.

Choosing the right investor is far more important than we realise at the time. Capital matters. Alignment on vision matters. Backing you through good times and even more through difficult times matters. But looking back at our journey, I have realised there is something even deeper: DNA. Over the last 9 years, without anyone consciously teaching us, month after month, meeting after meeting, something from @InfoEdgeVC @INFOEDGEIN Ltd quietly became part of how we built our company. Frugality as a habit, not an exercise. Strong governance. Compliance without shortcuts. Customer value before noise. And staying grounded irrespective of where the journey takes you. There was never a session on these things. No one came and told us, “This is how you should build.” We simply observed. Every interaction over the years with @sbikh @hitobs left something behind the humility, the groundedness, the quality of questions, the respect for fundamentals, and the patience to build for the long term. And somewhere along the way, you start thinking: This is the kind of company we want to build. This is the kind of institution we want to become. That influence gradually gets wrapped into leadership conversations, decision-making and eventually the culture of the company itself. Today, when I look at some of the things we value deeply at Meritto governance, capital efficiency, customer obsession, integrity and building patiently for the long term - I can see where many of those influences came from. Perhaps that is one of the most underrated roles of a great investor. They don’t just invest in the company you are. Their example influences the company you eventually become. Grateful to Info Edge, Sanjeev and Hitesh for being that influence in our journey. Some lessons are taught. The most powerful ones are simply lived in front of you. Some old memories

At different stages of life, different people become your teachers. In school, in college, at work - and then through the journey of building something. Almost a year ago, @merittoofficial brought together our Independent Board. For me, that opened another chapter of learning. People who challenge your thinking. Ask questions you may not always ask yourself. Bring perspective from journeys very different from yours. And sometimes, simply help you see the same thing differently. As a founder, I have realised that learning never really stops. This Teachers’ Day, a small thank you to Neha Kant, Siddhartha Pahwa, Priyank Garg and Naresh Chand Gupta for being part of our journey. Grateful to have you with us. 🙏 Happy Teachers’ Day.

Every time I walk past this wall in our @merittoofficial office, it reminds me of one thing- Dreams take time. But when you keep building, they compound. We understand compounding very easily when it comes to money. I think businesses compound in much the same way. Products compound. Customer trust compounds. People & process compound. Distribution compounds. Knowledge compounds. And perhaps most importantly, an organisation's ability to dream bigger - and execute better - compounds. Looking at this wall, every dot represents something that once felt important on its own. Our first office. Our first Growth conference . Our first few hundred customers. Building new products. Entering new markets. Thousands of experiments, mistakes, learnings and small wins in between. At that point, you don't always know how these pieces will eventually connect. But you keep building. Over time, one capability creates the foundation for another. One product opens the possibility for the next. Great people attract more great people. Customer trust gives you permission to solve bigger problems. That is when compounding becomes visible. There are always shortcuts available in business. You can optimise for the next quarter. Chase what is fashionable. Copy what seems to be working elsewhere. Or change direction every time the market changes its mind. We have tried to follow a simpler philosophy: Build patiently. Build fundamentally. Keep raising the ambition. For us, this wall was never meant to be a collection of milestones. We called it for a reason. Because every time one dream became real, it gave us the confidence to dream a little bigger. And after almost a decade of building, I feel we are still at the beginning of what we set out to create. Patience gives compounding time to work. Compounding gives you the ability to dream bigger. And then you keep building.

One of the institutions using Meritto has had its main website unavailable for an extended period. Normally, you would expect admissions to suffer immediately. No website → no discovery → no applications. But that wasn't what happened. Students were still discovering the institution's Meritto-powered admission portal through Google, ChatGPT and other routes. They came directly to the admission journey. They explored. They filled applications. And some went all the way to admission. The institution's primary digital front door was unavailable. But its admissions infrastructure kept running. That made us think differently about what “infrastructure” really means. Over the years, Meritto has become part of the student journey across ~1,200 institutions. Millions of students have interacted with admissions experiences powered by us. And perhaps the role of infrastructure is exactly this: When everything is working, you remain invisible. When something breaks, you keep the institution running. Meritto is backing you @merittoofficial @collexoind