Excl: Video-based ed-tech startup Impartus raises funding from Kaizen

Education sector-focused private investment firm Kaizen is investing in a Series A round in Bangalore-based education-related technology solutions startup Impartus Innovations Pvt Ltd, sources told Techcircle.in. This is the first new deal by Kaizen in almost two years and comes amidst reports that it is looking at raising a new fund this year.

For more details on the funding click here.

Calls and an email query to spokesperson of Kaizen PE did not elicit any response. A separate email query to the top team at Impartus also went unanswered.

Impartus Innovations is into video-based educational services. It essentially records regular class lectures and then uses technology to make it interactive for users to access it later. Its flagship product is called 'Impartus Lecture Capture'.

The recording can be done in a multi-view mode and is automatically converted into digital content for anytime anywhere learning in addition to creating a content management flow for an institution.

These are then packaged with several tools such as auto-tagging using intelligent algorithms which makes the videos searchable and discoverable; video bookmarks; embedding note within a video grab of the lecture; Q&A platform linking a student to the teacher who delivered the lecture.

Besides these it also offers optional add-ons such as post-editing and customisable analytics and reports.

The services are offered in two models. As per the first model, Impartus invests and owns the infrastructure/hardware, and institute pays a recurring fee for availing the services. As per the second one,  the institute buys and owns the infrastructure/hardware, and Impartus provides system integration, software and maintenance services to the institute.

The firm claims it has 40 institutes as clients which are using it in over 400 classrooms and every day more than 30,000 students are using its solution on their own devices. Its clients include IIM-Bangalore; SP Jain, Mumbai, Shiv Nadar Group, Manipal Group and Podar International.

The company is on an annual revenue run rate of close to $1 million and had recently tied up with Pearson India for education related services.

The company was set up in 2013 by a team of three: Amit Mahensaria, Manish Kumar and Alok Choudhary. Mahensaria and Kumar are 2002 batch graduates from IIT Delhi while Choudhary is a IIT Chennai graduate in the same year.

Mahensaria, who did his MBA from IIM Lucknow, heads sales & marketing and also finance. He has been associated with the education sector for around a decade. Before co-founding Impartus, he worked as an investment manager at IDFC Alternatives.

Kumar, who heads the product development and implementation team, was previously with Citigroup as a technology professional in various capacities. His area of interest also includes quantitative applications in finance.

Choudhary heads the R&D unit department at Impartus and is also a senior manager at Fracton Technologies. He has been CEO of Gurgaon-based Saakar Wealth Management in the past.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)