School supplies startup Edyoo gets pre-Series A cheque

Edyoo, an e-commerce platform which sells products primarily used by schoolgoing children, has raised $1 million (Rs 6.8 crore) in pre-Series A funding from RS Shanbag, chairman and managing director of the diversified Valuepoint Group.

Bengaluru-based Edyoo said in a statement that it will use the fresh capital for product development, technology, marketing, and to expand its team and areas of operation.

Owned and operated by Edyoo Technologies Pvt. Ltd, the startup was founded in June last year by Rakshit Kejriwal.
The online marketplace offers items such as books, uniforms, stationery, water bottles, among others for children between the ages of four and 18.

It also offers value-added products and services, such as EMI on school fees, health check-up plans, insurance on education, sports packages and edutainment.

Edyoo, which currently has a team of 30 full-time employees, claims to have partnered with more than a thousand K-12 and pre-schools across India and several hundred school vendors and brands.

The firm said that it is already serving more than 50,000 parents and is set to cater to more than 2 lakh parents by the end of this year.

Edyoo had acquired Yoscholar.com, a company operating in a similar domain, in March this year.

Founder Kejriwal previously co-founded DropKaffe, a Bengaluru-based venture capital-backed startup that manufactures and distributes bottled dairy beverages.

He was previously an investment banker in New York. While in the US, Kejriwal started and exited an ed-tech company called SmartOn Learning Solutions, which was backed by accelerator TechStars.

Peers

Other startups operating in the same space as Edyoo include Schoolwear.in and Schoolkart.com.

Schoolwear.in, which runs an online platform to sell school uniforms and supplies, had raised Rs 10 crore ($1.5 million) in seed funding in 2016. 

Also in 2016, Schoolkart.com raised $300,000 in funding from 12 angel investors.

EduVision Retail Technologies Pvt Ltd, which runs educational products aggregator Fastudent, had in 2015 raised an undisclosed amount in seed investment from a group of angel investors.

While not direct competitors of Edyoo, other startups catering to schoolchildren such as Flintobox and Shirsa Labs have also raised funding recently.

Flintobox, which offers activity-based learning kits for children, raised $7 million (about Rs 45 crore) in a Series A round led by venture capital firm Lightbox late last year. 

Mumbai-based Shirsa Labs Pvt. Ltd, which runs a website called ‘Planet of GUI’ to entertain and educate children in the age group of 6-13, received $500,000 (Rs 3.21 crore) in a pre-series A round in February.