Ed-tech startup WhiteHat Jr raises seed capital from Nexus, Omidyar

Mumbai-based education technology startup WhiteHat Jr on Tuesday said it has raised $1.3 million (Rs 9 crore as per current exchange rates) in a seed funding round from venture capital firm Nexus Venture Partners and impact investor Omidyar Network India Advisors, the startup said in a statement.

The company will deploy the capital to grow its business, invest in technology and hire talent, the statement added.

Run by WhiteHat Education Technology Pvt. Ltd, the venture was founded this year by former Discovery Networks chief executive Karan Bajaj. It is an online one-on-one platform which teaches coding fundamentals such as sequence, structure, logic, commands and algorithmic thinking, to young kids aged 6 to 14.

"We are overwhelmed by the response shown by the parents to a sunrise subject like coding. We are scaling up our operations and technology to cater to the massive influx and keep up with the consumer interest while also ensuring great teaching experience with our teachers, selected by a rigorous selection process,” said  Bajaj.

In January 2019, the startup launched its beta version and has so far conducted more than 50,000 trials. Currently, it claims to conduct 500 online classes per day.

The company also claims to see a 400% growth every month in terms of students joining its live online classes.

WhiteHat Jr has over 100 teachers on its platform. It currently offers three level of courses—beginner, intermediate and advanced. Kids use the coding fundamentals to create complex games, animations and apps in a live 1:1 online classroom.

WhiteHat Jr also plans to launch a professional course for kids in the age group 13-14 years, it said.

Other deals in edtech

• April 2019: Kalyan Krishnamurthy, chief executive officer of homegrown e-commerce firm Flipkart, topped up his investment in online learning platform Unacademy.
• March 2019: Edtech unicorn Byju’s, run by Think and Learn Pvt. Ltd, raised $31.3 million (Rs 215 crore at current exchange rates) in a fresh round of funding from existing investor New York-headquartered private equity firm General Atlantic.
• March 2019: Quiz-based learning edtech startup iChamp raised an undisclosed amount in a pre-Series A funding round led by Raju Shukla, chief executive officer at Singapore-based Ariana Investment Management.
• February 2019: Hyderabad- and US-based Bulbul Inc., which develops learning apps for pre-school kids, raised Rs 3.5 crore ($500,000) in a fresh round of funding from a clutch of investors.