Online education platform Embibe gets $12.6 mn from Reliance

Indiavidual Learning, which owns online education platform Embibe, has raised $12.6 million in a preference share issue on rights basis from its promoter RIL (Reliance Industries Limited).  

The company issued 8,99,198 preference shares to RIL at Rs 999 apiece on rights basis, as per the regulatory filing.

The platform was acquired by RIL in June 2018 from its founders Aditi Avasthi and Nishant Menon. At the time, RIL had said it will infuse $180 million over the next three years in the platform to aid further growth. 

Embibe uses artificial intelligence, data science and machine learning to provide online coaching for various competitive and entrance exams. 

The move comes two months after Embibe acquired Dreams Edusoft-owned Funtoot, a learning platform for children, for around $10 million to accelerate the former’s digital education technology platform’s development initiatives. In 2015, Embibe acquired 100Marks, an online platform for students looking to write competitive entrance examinations for engineering colleges. 

Recent deals in the edtech sector

Embibe operates in a sector dominated by Bengaluru-based unicorn startup Byju’s, Unacademy, and Vedantu. In January this year, Think and Learn-owned Byju’s raised $200 million from New York-based alternative investment firm Tiger Global Management. The deal valued the startup at around $8 billion. 

Ernakulam-based Entri Software, which runs an eponymous vernacular learning app for government and private job examination aspirants, raised $1.4 million in a seed round led by Good Capital, along with some anonymous investors. 

In another deal, online maths learning platform Doubtnut raised $15 million in a Series A round led by Chinese technology conglomerate Tencent Holdings along with existing investors Omidyar Network India, AET (Akatsuki Entertainment Technology) Fund, Cure.Fit founder and former Flipkart CBO Ankit Nagori, and Sequoia Capital India. 

Reskilling platform for college graduates and software workers Interviewbit raised $20 million in a Series A round jointly led by Sequoia Capital India and Tiger Global Management, along with Rocket Internet.