Kutuki and Simyog Tech secure funding; XSEED snaps up Report Bee

Kutuki, an early learning content platform for pre-school children, has raised an undisclosed amount in a pre-seed round from Better Capital AngelList Syndicate and Mphasis founder Jerry Rao, a company statement said.

The Bengaluru-based company, founded in 2017 by husband-wife duo Sneha Sundaram and Bharath Bevinahally, will use the current round of capital to develop its own content in local Indian languages and to drive adoption in Tier 2 and 3 cities.

The platform provides education, learning and entertainment content in the form of songs, animated stories and illustrated books for children up to seven years old. The subscription-based app, which works on a freemium model for two months, is currently available on Android and will be soon launched for iOS.

“The Kutuki team has recognised the opportunity to build content­based early education solutions with a 100% Indianised angle to the learning and with a curricular framework that helps parents guide their children to learn in a well-defined structure,” said Vaibhav Domkundwar, founder and chief executive of Better Capital.

The founders said that the app aims to build an early learning solution for the over 160 million pre-school market in India. Kutuki is currently incubated at NSRCEL at IIM Bangalore.

IISc-incubated Simyog raises capital

Simyog Technology, a design and verification tools developer for electromagnetic interference (EMI) and electromagnetic compatibility (EMC), has raised Rs 6.3 crore from Ideaspring Capital, a company statement said. The company reduces the time-to-market and bill of materials for developing automotive electronics used in vehicles ahead of prototype manufacture.

The Bengaluru-based startup incubated by the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) was incorporated in 2017 by Dr Dipanjan Gope, assistant professor at IISc along with Bibhu Prasad Nayak, Dr Arkaprovo Das, Anant Devi and Harikiran Muniganti.

“Dipanjan has been working on really cutting-edge technology in the EMI/EMC space and he is productising his research contributions to significantly impact the industry both in terms of time and cost. It is great to be investing along with a premier industry partner, Bosch, and a prestigious academic institution, IISc. Ideaspring believes in the concept of industry, academia and investor partnership for product innovation and is very glad to have all three entities in this deal,” said Naganand Doraswamy, managing partner, Ideaspring Capital in the statement.

Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions (RBEI) is an early investor in Simyog.

“Machine learning plays a significant role in model-based simulation and software development to enhance value to our customers. The number of electronic and electrical components in products are increasing rapidly and there is need for much shorter time-to-market. To address this need, we envision a virtualised EMC chamber at every hardware developer’s table in the future,” said RK Shenoy, senior vice president, RBEI in a statement.

XSEED acquires Report Bee

Singapore-headquartered K-12 education company XSEED Education Pte has acquired Chennai-based Indian education technology company Report Bee for an undisclosed amount, a company statement said. Report Bee’s co-founders Ananthraman Mani, Bala Ganesh S and Anjan T will join XSEED as key members of the technology product team.

Established in 2010, Report Bee provides cloud-based software solution to schools to asses, report and analyse the performance of individual students, classes and teachers. The company was backed by Michael and Susan Dell Foundation’s early investment arm, the India Educational Investment Fund.

“This is an important step towards becoming a complete education technology company. Report Bee brings on board capabilities in analytics, reporting, personalised assessment and product design that complement the XSEED method,” said Ashish Rajpal, CEO of XSEED in the statement.

Founded in 2014, XSEED is backed by Lighthouse Funds and Verlinvest. It provides research-based learning methods for schools and is present in eight countries.