zingbus raises fresh funds; ImaginXP buys Noesis Learning

zingbus Technology, an inter-city bus aggregator, on Wednesday said has raised an undisclosed amount of funds from Y Combinator. The Gurugram-based firm is part of Y Combinator's Winter 2021 batch of startups. 

The fresh funds, as per a statement, will be used to strengthen the startup’s presence in existing cities, and help it expand to new geographies.

“A significant part of the funds will also be utilised in building a technology stack that will allow the platform to deliver a better experience to travellers,” the statement said. 

zingbus was set up in 2019 by Prashant Kumar, Mratunjay, and Ravi Kumar Verma. It claims to currently enable over 2,000 daily journeys across Delhi, National Capital Region, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Jammu, Haryana, and Punjab.  

Last month, it raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Arora Ventures, Titan Capital, Better Capital, Venture Catalysts, and Anupam Mittal, among other investors. In February 2020, it had raised an undisclosed amount in a seed funding round from venture capital firm AdvantEdge Partners and internet investment and advisory company Smile Group. 

ImaginXP acquires Noesis Learning  

A little over a week after after raising $1.5 million from Venture Catalysts and others, Pune-based Giggle Galaxy on Tuesday said it has acquired Noesis Learning, an edtech startup that brings technology into the space of career to course mapping.  

Giggle Galaxy, which provides degree and certification courses under the brand name ImaginXP, did not disclose financial terms of the deal in its statement.  

ImaginXP said it has partnered with 22 universities across the country and employs over 70 full-time faculty members, with over 1,250 working professionals acting as corporate coaches on its MyCoach platform to train, mentor and create mock work-like environments on projects to increase student employability. 

There are 3,00,000 students studying at these partner universities that act as a captive total available market (TAM) for ImaginXP to train in future skills.  

Founded by Ajay Kumar and Pallavi Singla in 2019, and backed by Marwari Catalyst, the Noesis Learning acquisition is aimed at bringing in digital acceleration to ImaginXP's higher education model, the statement added. 

The Noesis Learning platform, called Schoolsonweb, enables live learning, assessment automation, assignments, doubt clearing forums and connects students and corporate coaches for career focused learning.