Rebright, Java Capital, GSF bet on online coding platform for kids Codingal

By Joseph Rai

  • 01 Dec 2020
Credit: Pexels

Codingal Education Pvt. Ltd, which runs an eponymous online coding platform for school children, said it has raised $560,000 (Rs 4.13 crore) in its seed round of funding.

The funding round was led by venture capital firm Rebright Partners, early-stage investment syndicate Java Capital and tech-startup accelerator GSF Accelerator, Codingal said in a statement.

The company will use the funds to introduce courses, competitions and hackathons in the K-12 segment with an aim to build a coding community of one million school kids.

Codingal was founded earlier this year by Vivek Prakash and Satyam Baranwal, who've both had entrepreneurial stints before.

Prakash, an IIT-Roorkee graduate, had previously founded HackerEarth, an AI-powered developer assessment software provider. Baranwal, an IIT Dhanbad graduate, had launched Skillovate Learning, which sought to skill school students through a coding, robotics and AI curriculum.

Prakash, who is also the CEO of Codingal, said that teaching coding to kids has become a necessity as technology keeps evolving at a rapid pace.

Coding and ed-tech

Startups in the educational-technology segment, especially coding, have been attracting attention from investors.

In August, ed-tech giant Byju’s acquired coding-focussed WhiteHat Jr for $300 million in a deal that offered blockbuster exits to investors.

In the same month, VCCircle reported that venture capital firm Sequoia Capital invested in a Pune-based ed-tech startup focused on teaching coding to school students.

In February, consumer internet company Info Edge (India) Ltd invested Rs $5.2 million in Sunrise Mentors Pvt. Ltd, a Delhi-based company that operates online learning platform CodingNinjas.