Ed-tech startup Buddy4Study raises Series A funding

Ed-tech startup Buddy4Study has raised $3 million (Rs 20 crore) in Series A funding from existing investor CBA Capital, which is backed by the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation (MSDF).

The Noida-headquartered startup said in a statement that it will use the money to scale up and signifcantly expand its operations.

The investment was made out of CBA Capital’s Education Catalyst Fund (ECF), which had put money into the same startup in early January.

Founded in 2011, Buddy4Study is a scholarship portal that helps students reach out to providers and manage their applications.

The platform lists scholarships from school to PhD level, and lets students screen, choose, apply and track their applications through an online scholarship management system.

The same platform can be used by scholarship sponsors to list, market, screen, fund and track applicants.

The company was founded by Raj Kishor, Ashutosh Burnwal, Mohit Bhambri, Anirban Chatterjee, Manjeet Singh, Sandeep Kumar and Manasvi Singh.

Buddy4Study claims to have disbursed over Rs 5 crore worth of scholarships with more than 6,500 students benefiting in the process.

The company aims to facilitate another Rs 100 crore worth of scholarships to more than 10 lakh students in the country.

“With the government providing a massive digital push in the same segment, it is only opportune to multiply our efforts and develop more innovative products to provide end-to-end financial aid to students,” said co-founder Manjeet Singh.

Education Catalyst Fund
ECF, a Category II Alternative Investment Fund registered with capital markets regulator the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), was floated last September and has a target corpus of $20 million (Rs 130 crore).

The fund targets pre-Series A, Series A and Series B equity rounds in companies focused on education and skilling.

ECF had marked the first close of the fund in October after raising nearly two-thirds of the target corpus.

VCCircle first reported in January that the fund had made its debut investment in Delhi-headquartered virtual reality startup Simulanis.

Apart from MSDF, the other limited partners in the fund include US-based impact investment foundation Gray Matters Capital and a few private Indian investors.

Geeta Goel, vice president of mission investing at MSDF, had said the final close is expected towards the end of 2018.

Deals in ed-tech space
Other ed-tech startups that raised funds recently include Toppr, which raised $100,000 (Rs 65 lakh) last month as part of an extended Series B funding round from Hong Kong-based early-stage investor Axis Capital Partners.

In early February, CollegeDekho raised $2 million (around Rs 13.2 crore) in its third round of funding from London-based Man Capital LLP, Girnar Software and other investors.

Last month, Pune-based ed-tech startup Rubix108 Technologies secured $1 million (Rs 6.5 crore) in a pre-Series A funding round led by Polaris Fund.

Bengaluru-based iNurture raised Rs 28 crore in a Series C funding round led by Ventureast in the last week of January.

AEON Learning Pvt. Ltd raised $3.2 million (Rs 20.43 crore) in a Series B round from MEMG Family Office LLP in the last week of January as well.