Ed-tech startup DoubtNut raises fresh capital in round led by Sequoia Surge

Gurugram-based DoubtNut, which runs a multi-lingual math learning platform for students, has raised an undisclosed amount in a fresh round of investment from a clutch of investors.

In a press note, Class 21A Technologies Private Limited, which operates the venture, said the round was led by Surge, the accelerator and incubator programme of multi-stage investment firm Sequoia Capital.

Akatsuki Entertainment Technology Fund (AET Fund), the investment arm of Japanese gaming company Akatsuki Inc. came on board as a new investor. Existing investors impact firm Omidyar Network and WaterBridge Ventures also contributed to the round, the statement added.

“Our belief is that video is the key content medium for next 500 million digital content consumers and DoubtNut will be a great service for vernacular students who want to be prosperous,” Yuki Kawamura, principal and head of investments in India at AET Fund, said.

Only a day earlier, Sequoia had announced that DoubtNut was part of eight Indian startups among the 17 ventures it selected for the first cohort of Surge.

The company will use the capital to deepen and widen its product offerings in terms of subjects, languages and classes, and to expand its team, said the statement.

In March 2018, DoubtNut raised Rs 3.5 crore ($539,000 then) in a pre-Series A round from WaterBridge and Omidyar.

DoubtNut

The venture was founded in 2016 by Tanushree Nagori and Aditya Shankar, both graduates of IIT Delhi. The startup uses artificial intelligence to provide solutions to math problems. Students can upload a photo of their query or doubt in math and the nearly three-year-old startup will send them a video with a solution within 8-10 seconds, it claims.

The startup offers learning solutions in Maths for students from classes 6-12, besides IIT-JEE aspirants. The company claims to have more than 100,000 videos in their library and thousands more are being added each month.

“According to two different studies, doubt clearance and homework help are the biggest student needs and 62% of Indian parents spend 12 hours per week on that. We are using technology to solve for the students’ biggest pain point and aim to provide a comprehensive education solution to all students in the language and in the manner that they understand the best,” Nagori stated.

Recent deals in ed-tech

• April 2019: Mumbai-based ed-tech startup WhiteHat Jr raised $1.3 million (Rs 9 crore then) in a seed funding round from Nexus Venture Partners and Omidyar Network India Advisors.
• April 2019: Kalyan Krishnamurthy, chief executive officer of homegrown e-commerce firm Flipkart, topped up his investment in online learning platform Unacademy.
• March 2019: Ed-tech 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 investors New York-headquartered private equity firm General Atlantic and Tencent Holdings.
• March 2019: Quiz-based learning ed-tech 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.