InOpen Technologies raises Series A funding from Japanese education firm Benesse

Mumbai-based InOpen Technologies Pvt Ltd, a startup that develops educational content and teacher training solutions, has raised an undisclosed amount in Series A funding from Japanese education firmBenesse Holdings Inc. The funds will be used to strengthen the team size and increase customer support bandwidth.

Incubated at IIT Bombay as a content generation and resource training firm, the company had raised $500,000 in seed funding from Ventureast Tenet Fund II in August 2011. The startup was founded in October 2009 by IIT Bombay professor Sridhar Iyer, along with Rupesh Shah, who was previously involved with training college students in open source and adult literacy.

InOpen designs and develops educational content and solutions for academic institutions. Its flagship product, called Computer Masti, is a computer science learning solution that has been implemented in over 200 schools in India and is being used by 5 lakh students in the country. While Computer Masti is serving the K-12 market, the startup is also working with the IT literacy solutions wing of various government organisations and corporates. InOpen is also in talks with investors (both financial and impact funds) for further investment.

Benesse Holdings, Inc. is engaged in education, lifestyle products, senior/nursing care and language/leadership training businesses in Japan and international markets. Established in 1955 as a publishing company, it later diversified into the business of providing correspondence courses for the K-12 and pre-school educational segments. In the 1990s and 2000s, the company entered new business domains, including language education, childcare magazines and the nursing care business. Apart from Japan, the company has presence in the US and Indonesia.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)