Ed-tech firm ConveGenius raises $900K from Michael & Susan Dell Foundation
Noida-based ConveGenius Edu Solutions Pvt Ltd, a mobile-based education venture, has raised equity investment worth Rs 6 crore ($90,000) from Michael & Susan Dell Foundation. The firm will leverage the funds to provide impactful 'education for the masses,' it said in a statement.
"With the current investment, we seek to scale our operations, build on our existing archive of educational content by aggregating more exciting content providers across various languages, and strengthen our technology for self-learning by building intelligence on the ConveGenius Slate platform," said Jairaj Bhattacharya, co-founder and CEO of ConveGenius.
ConveGenius was set up in 2013 by IIIT Hyderabad alumni Jairaj Bhattacharya and Shashank Pandey and provides tablet and mobile-based solutions to K-12 segment in India. The firm curates content from multiple companies like Mexus Education (Iken Store), Pratham Books (StoryWeaver) and Chippersage. The company assesses students' progress in real time by using data analytics tools. It even provides them with personalised learning paths based on the most relevant content.
The startup offers its platform for an annual fee of Rs 4,500. The platform has been adopted by NGOs and learning centres in Singapore. In June 2016, ConveGenius partnered with Lenovo to launch a tablet mapped to NCERT curriculum for classes KG to 5 and is currently available for parents to purchase on Flipkart.
The startup had raised $300,000 (Rs 2 crore) in a pre-Series A round in November 2015 from unnamed investors based in India and Southeast Asia, through Enablers, a web-based platform that connects investors and startups. Among the firm's biggest backers at the seed and angel level is Ashish Gupta, founder and trustee of Ashoka University and former COO and global head of analytics and data management firm Evalueserve.
The ed-tech space has seen numerous deals recently. On Tuesday, Unacademy raised Rs 6.7 crore ($1 million) led by Blume Ventures with participation from Flipkart co-founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal and Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma and others. In July, Delhi-based Transweb Educational Services raised a series A round from 500 Startups, which saw the early-stage VC fund house pick 6.48% stake in the startup. The same month, Bangalore-based Byju's raised funding from US-based Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Uolo Technology, an app that enables parents and schools to communicate with one another, raised $210,000 (around Rs 1.4 crore) in seed funding from Purvi Ventures, Sunstone Business School director Rajul Garg and others. Delhi-based EdTechReview raised an undisclosed amount in a pre-Series A round of funding from EVC Ventures in June.
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