Avagmah raises funding from Kris Gopalakrishnan and Atul Nishar

Bangalore-based online education technology service provider Avagmah has raised an undisclosed amount in angel funding from Infosys' co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan and Atul Nishar, founder of Hexaware and Aptech Computer Education.

Avagmah's existing investors including K Ganesh and Meera Ganesh, Lionrock Capital and Neeraj Bhargava of Zodius Capital participated in this round.

The startup will use the capital raised for technology enhancement to acquire more Indian university clients, Avagmah said in a statement.

Husband-wife serial entrepreneurs K Ganesh and Meena Ganesh had returned to the digital education business by acquiring Avagmah in April 2014 after selling their online education venture TutorVista to UK-based Pearson Inc for Rs 980 crore in 2013.

With this, Avagmah, run by  Aeon Learning Pvt Ltd, has secured $5 million in funding in the last 18 months.

The startup offers a range of services to universities including marketing, student counseling, virtual classroom, student engagement and retention programs on its SaaS-based Avagmah Technology Platform (ATP). It also provides application-based and web technology solutions for delivery of courses by universities.

It currently works with three universities -- Pondicherry University, Bharathidasan University and Los Angeles-based UCLA Extension, and claims to have grown eight times in the last 18 months.

"Universities and top tier institutions have to adopt technology to provide access to quality education to millions of working professionals and students in urban and remote India, which would then address the demand-supply gap of skilled talent. I see great potential in startups like Avagmah which can bring in positive disruption in our education system through technology," Gopalakrishnan said.

Avagmah was founded by Karthik KS (CEO), who had previously co-founded 24x7 Learning, an e-learning consulting, technology and implementation company. In the past, he has worked at companies such as PCL, HCL, HP and Microland. Karthik holds a Mechanical Engineering degree from National Institute of Technology (Karnataka) and a PG Diploma in Business Management from Bharti Vidya Bhavan (New Delhi).

"We are satisfied with the success in the initial phase, with one of the university clients reporting 200 per cent growth in student enrollment in 12 months which reached itself to a much larger audience using Avagmah's technology and services," Karthik said. He further added that the company is eyeing 10X growth in the next two years.

A bunch of ed-tech startups have secured funding over the last couple of months.

Last month, Bangalore based ed-tech firm Carveniche Technologies Pvt Ltd has raised an undisclosed sum in angel funding from Calcutta Angels, Lead Angels and a bunch of undisclosed high net worth individuals (HNIs).

Oust Labs Inc., a platform that helps students prepare for competitive exams using mobile gaming technology, has raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from former Infosys director T V Mohandas Pai and Aarin Capital in February this year.

In January, Jaipur-based EduCommerce Technologies Pvt Ltd, which runs mobile-based education startup Myly, raised $100,000 (about Rs 67 lakh) in seed funding from Newbie Promoter Pvt Ltd.

In the same period, GZG Eduservices Pvt Ltd, which operates career planning and education advisory startup Gyaanzone.com, has raised $45,000 (Rs 30 lakh) in seed funding from Mumbai-based digital marketing company GBIM Technologies Pvt Ltd.