Amitabh Bachchan, Ogilvy's Piyush Pandey invest in ed-tech startup Eduisfun

By Narinder Kapur

  • 24 Dec 2019
Credit: Thinkstock

Education-technology startup Eduisfun Technologies Pvt. Ltd has raised Rs 200 crore (approximately $28.08 million at current exchange rates) from a clutch of high-profile angel investors.

Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan, Ogilvy Group chief creative officer Piyush Pandey and PricewaterhouseCoopers partner Russel Parera were among those who participated in the investment round, news website Entrackr reported.

Mumbai-based Eduisfun will use the funds to increase its scholarship pool, product development, and expand to over 1.5 million schools across the country, the report said.

VCCircle has reached out Eduisfun on the details of the investment and will update this report accordingly.

The startup was founded by Praveen Tyagi and Jatin Solanki in 2014. Tyagi said that the cost of Eduisfun’s services was significantly lesser compared to other platforms. The company says STEPApp’s content is created by a team of over 400 Indian Institute of Technology professionals and doctors, all of whom have taught for competitive exams like the IIT-JEE, BITSAT, and the AIIMS entrance examination, according to the company’s website.

Deals in the ed-tech segment

The online learning and ed-tech segment has attracted considerable investor interest of late.

The valuation of ed-tech firm Byju’s crossed $5 billion after it raised $31.3 million in a funding round in March led by existing investors General Atlantic and Tencent Holdings Ltd. In December last year, Byju’s announced that it secured $540 million (Rs 3,855 crore then) in a round led by South African tech conglomerate Naspers.

Earlier this month, Ed-tech platform Springboard, which focuses on providing career upskilling solutions for professionals, raised $11 million (around Rs 78 crore) in a post-Series A financing round from investors such as Reach Capital, Pearson Ventures, International Finance Corporation, and Costanoa Ventures.

Last month, Sunstone Eduversity Pvt. Ltd raised Rs 11.3 crore ($1.56 million) in a seed funding round led by Bengaluru-based Prime Venture Partners and joined by LetsVenture, PS1 Venture and GlobalLogic co-founder Rajul Garg.

In October, Info Edge (India) Ltd, which owns and operates portals such as job site Naukri.com, said it had invested Rs 7.06 crore (a little less than $1 million) in Adda247, a test-preparation platform for government and public-sector exams.

*A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that HDFC's Deepak Parekh had invested in Eduisfun.