IIM-Ahmedabad Centre Launches $25 Mn Seed Fund To Invest in Tech Startups

Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad’s (IIMA’s) centre for innovation, incubation, and entrepreneurship (CIIE) has launched a US$25 million seed fund named 'Bharat Inclusion Initiative', which aims to mentor and invest in early stage tech startups over the next three-four years, reported Economic Times.

The initiative will focus on incubating and backing startups that work in areas such as financial inclusion, livelihood, education and health.

With seed support from Tata Trusts, the initiative has received an initial commitment of $12.5 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, and Omidyar Network. This includes a $5 million commitment for providing catalytic support to start-ups through a series of acceleration programmes, focused research, training workshops and piloting partnerships. In addition, CIIE will also invest in seed and pre-Series-A start-ups through a dedicated Bharat Inclusion Seed Fund - which announced its initial closing at $7.5 million, and is expected to make a final close at $15 million by July, 2018.

“The Bharat Inclusion Initiative aims to provide a continuum of solutions to inclusion-focused tech entrepreneurs across the pre-incubation, seed and scale-up stage and help them jump to the next orbit. It is heartening to see the support for this initiative from all the partners,” said Neharika Vohra, chairperson, CIIE Initiatives.

Pawan Bakhshi, India Lead, Financial Services for the Poor, at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said, "At Gates Foundation, we are committed to creating a disproportionate and sustained impact on some of the most critical challenges facing the nation today."

Through in-depth research to build knowledge about the under-served, incubating new start-ups in this space and providing access to soft and patient capital as these ventures take root, the Bharat Inclusion Initiative will seek to catalyse entrepreneurs who are building disruptive solutions for Bharat.

According to Santhosh Ramdoss, director, India programmes, at the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, a large portion of urban poor families in India do not have any formal access to financial services. “We are presented with a landmark opportunity to take on this challenge, given India’s leadership in building a cutting-edge public technology infrastructure that can be used to seamlessly deliver a variety of critical digital services to low-income families."

Speaking about Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, in February, the foundation has led the $13.5 million (~ Rs 87 crore) funding of Bengaluru based edtech startup IMAX Program.

In August 2017, it was reported that the foundation is looking to launch incubator for startups in India. And for same, the foundation is reportedly in talks with IIM-Ahmedabad’s CIIE.

CIIE was founded to support entrepreneurs and turn business ideas into viable businesses models. It partners with industry experts, mentors, corporates, IIMA community and investors to help incubate early-stage start-ups.

In the past, CIIE incubated startups include Razorpay, Hashcube, Rolocule, and Thrillophilia, among others. In 2015, the centre had launched India’s first Food & Agri-Business accelerator for startups in food and agri-business sector.

IIM-Ahmedabad Centre Launches $25 Mn Seed Fund To Invest in Tech Startups

Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad’s (IIMA’s) centre for innovation, incubation, and entrepreneurship (CIIE) has launched a US$25 million seed fund named 'Bharat Inclusion Initiative', which aims to mentor and invest in early stage tech startups over the next three-four years, reported Economic Times.

The initiative will focus on incubating and backing startups that work in areas such as financial inclusion, livelihood, education and health.

With seed support from Tata Trusts, the initiative has received an initial commitment of $12.5 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, and Omidyar Network. This includes a $5 million commitment for providing catalytic support to start-ups through a series of acceleration programmes, focused research, training workshops and piloting partnerships. In addition, CIIE will also invest in seed and pre-Series-A start-ups through a dedicated Bharat Inclusion Seed Fund - which announced its initial closing at $7.5 million, and is expected to make a final close at $15 million by July, 2018.

“The Bharat Inclusion Initiative aims to provide a continuum of solutions to inclusion-focused tech entrepreneurs across the pre-incubation, seed and scale-up stage and help them jump to the next orbit. It is heartening to see the support for this initiative from all the partners,” said Neharika Vohra, chairperson, CIIE Initiatives.

Pawan Bakhshi, India Lead, Financial Services for the Poor, at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said, "At Gates Foundation, we are committed to creating a disproportionate and sustained impact on some of the most critical challenges facing the nation today."

Through in-depth research to build knowledge about the under-served, incubating new start-ups in this space and providing access to soft and patient capital as these ventures take root, the Bharat Inclusion Initiative will seek to catalyse entrepreneurs who are building disruptive solutions for Bharat.

According to Santhosh Ramdoss, director, India programmes, at the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, a large portion of urban poor families in India do not have any formal access to financial services. “We are presented with a landmark opportunity to take on this challenge, given India’s leadership in building a cutting-edge public technology infrastructure that can be used to seamlessly deliver a variety of critical digital services to low-income families."

Speaking about Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, in February, the foundation has led the $13.5 million (~ Rs 87 crore) funding of Bengaluru based edtech startup IMAX Program.

In August 2017, it was reported that the foundation is looking to launch incubator for startups in India. And for same, the foundation is reportedly in talks with IIM-Ahmedabad’s CIIE.

CIIE was founded to support entrepreneurs and turn business ideas into viable businesses models. It partners with industry experts, mentors, corporates, IIMA community and investors to help incubate early-stage start-ups.

In the past, CIIE incubated startups include Razorpay, Hashcube, Rolocule, and Thrillophilia, among others. In 2015, the centre had launched India’s first Food & Agri-Business accelerator for startups in food and agri-business sector.

EdTech Startup IMAX Program Raises $13.5 Mn Via Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, Others

Bengaluru based edtech startup IMAX Program has raised $13.5 million (~ Rs 87 crore) from the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, LGT Impact Ventures and existing investor Aspada.

The funds raised will be used by the startup used to further innovate the product, enhance in-school service experience and expand the customer base through multiple distribution channels. IMAX will also explore working with K12 publishers internationally, to deliver high quality in-school remedial programs to a global student base.

Founded in 2009 by Naveen Mandava and Varun Kumar, IMAX Program is a data drive personalization education product that builds learning genome using school assessments. It currently serves over 800 schools and 300,000 students across India, has raised USD 13.5 million, focused on providing curriculum services to K-12 schools in India.

In 2015, IMAX had raised USD 1.8M from Aspada, which has invested in this round too. That funding helped IMAX to implement affordable technology to the classrooms to enhance school's ability to measure and impact learning outcomes effectively.

The IMAX Program includes textbooks, workbooks, school exams, feedback reports and individualised remedial worksheets along with teacher manuals and teacher training modules. To ensure smooth integration with schools, the technology platform works at the backend to deliver exams, reports and remedial worksheets in print. The exam-remediation loop ensures that the key learning gaps are identified and bridged, thereby maximising learning.

"With this round, we will now further deliver a better experience for our customers and partners, and accelerate the expansion of our commercial operations in India. We will also be selectively looking at prospective markets abroad. We aim to impact 2 million students by 2020," said Varun Kumar, Co-founder, IMAX Program.

The above development was first reported in Business Standard.

The Education sector is seeing a lot of activities of late. To recall, a couple of week back, former CEO and co-founder of Infosys Shibulal has launched EduMentum — an incubator for early-stage startups working in the space of offline education transformation.

Talking about Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, in August 2017 it was reported that the foundation is looking to launch incubator for startups in India. And for the same, the foundation is in talks with IIM-Ahmedabad’s Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE). In the same month, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, along with other investors, had also invested in Gurgaon-based education startup Naandi Education Support & Training (NEST), a technology driven, social impact focused company. The startup had secured funding of Rs 4 crore, n that round.

Few weeks back, a Chennai-based education reform startup Chrysalis had raised a pre-series A funding round from Indian education sector focused investor Gray Matters Capital.

Last month, an another Ed-tech start up GreyAtom has raised a $1M funding round led by early-stage fund Pravega Ventures. In the same month, Bengaluru-based enterprise platform for educational institutions CollPoll has raised its pre-series A funding round led by Manipal Global Education Services (MaGE).

The Educational startups space in India is seeing lot of traction off late, as in recent months number of funding and M&A took place.

In November 2017, AEON Learning Private Limited, which is backed by Kris Gopalkrishnan, acquired Acadgild, an online edtech startup, for $10 million in an all stock deal.

In the same month, an another edtech startup Perspectico raised seed funding from Delhi University and Government of Delhi Incubator.

Additionally, AICTE tied-up with Fourth Ambit, a Kerala-based edtech startup, to connect over 10,000 tech insitutes across India through online portals.

EdTech Startup IMAX Program Raises $13.5 Mn Via Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, Others

Bengaluru based edtech startup IMAX Program has raised $13.5 million (~ Rs 87 crore) from the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, LGT Impact Ventures and existing investor Aspada.

The funds raised will be used by the startup used to further innovate the product, enhance in-school service experience and expand the customer base through multiple distribution channels. IMAX will also explore working with K12 publishers internationally, to deliver high quality in-school remedial programs to a global student base.

Founded in 2009 by Naveen Mandava and Varun Kumar, IMAX Program is a data drive personalization education product that builds learning genome using school assessments. It currently serves over 800 schools and 300,000 students across India, has raised USD 13.5 million, focused on providing curriculum services to K-12 schools in India.

In 2015, IMAX had raised USD 1.8M from Aspada, which has invested in this round too. That funding helped IMAX to implement affordable technology to the classrooms to enhance school's ability to measure and impact learning outcomes effectively.

The IMAX Program includes textbooks, workbooks, school exams, feedback reports and individualised remedial worksheets along with teacher manuals and teacher training modules. To ensure smooth integration with schools, the technology platform works at the backend to deliver exams, reports and remedial worksheets in print. The exam-remediation loop ensures that the key learning gaps are identified and bridged, thereby maximising learning.

"With this round, we will now further deliver a better experience for our customers and partners, and accelerate the expansion of our commercial operations in India. We will also be selectively looking at prospective markets abroad. We aim to impact 2 million students by 2020," said Varun Kumar, Co-founder, IMAX Program.

The above development was first reported in Business Standard.

The Education sector is seeing a lot of activities of late. To recall, a couple of week back, former CEO and co-founder of Infosys Shibulal has launched EduMentum — an incubator for early-stage startups working in the space of offline education transformation.

Talking about Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, in August 2017 it was reported that the foundation is looking to launch incubator for startups in India. And for the same, the foundation is in talks with IIM-Ahmedabad’s Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE). In the same month, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, along with other investors, had also invested in Gurgaon-based education startup Naandi Education Support & Training (NEST), a technology driven, social impact focused company. The startup had secured funding of Rs 4 crore, n that round.

Few weeks back, a Chennai-based education reform startup Chrysalis had raised a pre-series A funding round from Indian education sector focused investor Gray Matters Capital.

Last month, an another Ed-tech start up GreyAtom has raised a $1M funding round led by early-stage fund Pravega Ventures. In the same month, Bengaluru-based enterprise platform for educational institutions CollPoll has raised its pre-series A funding round led by Manipal Global Education Services (MaGE).

The Educational startups space in India is seeing lot of traction off late, as in recent months number of funding and M&A took place.

In November 2017, AEON Learning Private Limited, which is backed by Kris Gopalkrishnan, acquired Acadgild, an online edtech startup, for $10 million in an all stock deal.

In the same month, an another edtech startup Perspectico raised seed funding from Delhi University and Government of Delhi Incubator.

Additionally, AICTE tied-up with Fourth Ambit, a Kerala-based edtech startup, to connect over 10,000 tech insitutes across India through online portals.

Dell Foundation, Anand Mahindra Invest Rs 4 Cr In NEST Education

Naandi Education Support & Training (NEST), a technology driven, social impact focused company has secured follow-on funding of Rs 4 crore from the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and Anand Mahindra, chairman of the Mahindra Group.

The company plans to utilize funds to widen its outreach and achieve the goal of educating 100,000 students by FY 2022.Commenting on the development, Debasish Mitter, Country Director, Dell Foundation said, “We find the ability of NEST to aggregate content from around the world and to deliver multiple products through their centers very appealing.”

Commenting on the development, Debasish Mitter, Country Director, Dell Foundation said, “We find the ability of NEST to aggregate content from around the world and to deliver multiple products through their centers very appealing.”

NEST Education owns and operates two centers under the brand 'Alphabyte The Learning Terminal’. With a unique ‘Tech-N-Brick’ education model, Alphabyte aims to upgrade human capital across urban India. At alphabyte, technology is seamlessly used to fast track learning of each and every individual through customised learning modules that are curated from the best knowledge providers and pedagogies across the globe.

“Entrepreneurial efforts like NEST that combines technology and center-based coaching to aspiring children and youth are the best way to upgrade human capital in our country today,“ said Mahindra.

According to the company website, the team aspires to reach out to a hundred thousand children and young adults in next 5 years, helping them scale the social and economic ladder with the power of education.

In August 2017, an online platform for higher education, Leverage had raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from a bunch of prominent investors.

Earlier in July 2017, Gamified edtech startup PlayAblo had secured $600k funding led by ABI-Showatech (India) Ltd. In the same month, Thinkerbell Labs, which builds literacy devices for the visually impaired had raised an angel investment of Rs 1.3 Crore from Indian Angel Network and Anand Mahindra.

 

OnlineTyari Raises Series A Funding from Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, Contrarian Capital, Others

OnlineTyari (OT) has announced that it has raised an equity investment from the Michael And Susan Dell Foundation (MSDF), 3One4 Capital (an early stage venture capital fund backed by Mohandas Pai), Contrarian Capital, Tracxn Labs and couple of other investors and angels. MSDF is the lead investor in OT’s Series A investment round of INR 20 crores. Existing investors in OnlineTyari including Vikram Chachra (Partner at Eight Capital), Globevestor, Advantedge, Aloke Bajpai and Rajnish Kumar (Co-founders of Ixigo) also participated in the current round.

OT offers a mobile application that allows highly customized, curated and vernacular test preparation content delivered through very low internet bandwidths. It offers a full suite of solutions including entrance tests for public sector units, government jobs and higher education institutes. The comprehensive preparation materials include full mock tests, current affairs articles and other study material on a platform where candidates can practice, benchmark their performance and improve.

Since its launch, OT has become one of the fastest growing edtech platforms today - growing ten times in the past 12 months in terms of time spent by users on average, monthly with nearly 4 million downloads with over 400,000 daily active users.  The funds are planned to be used towards expanding OnlineTyari’s operations – to offer the platform across all major Indian languages by 2017 end. The funds will aso be used for opportunistic acquisitions in synergistic businesses across technology and education domains.

OnlineTyari was founded in 2014 by Vipin Agarwal and Bhola Ram Meena, both graduates of IIT Kanpur. They have have extensive technology and startup experience and have worked in an advisory role with the Government of India on the Digital India initiative.

Vipin Agarwal, CEO and Co-Founder, Online Tyari, said, “India is witnessing a paradigm shift toward online educational services. We are proud to be at the center of this and excited to partner with the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation as we move into the next phase of our growth. This partnership will help us introduce new business best practices and to achieve the scale needed to reach our goal: improving education and skill development for more than 100 million people every year across India.”

Bhola Ram Meena, Founder, OnlineTyari, said, “The market for government and public sector entrance exams is huge with more than 20 million aspirants every year. These exams are very different from top-end engineering college entrance exams, and we have customized our solution for this large, yet unique target segment. We believe our market advantage comes from the learnings that can be generated by the sheer number of users on our platform.”

Mohandas Pai, re-investing in the Company via 3one4 Capital, had this to say: "India's education system serves the largest student population on the planet, and it is imperative that we prepare this generation to be equipped with skills that make them globally competitive. A vital component of an inclusive system is to ensure that students have access to the highest quality content in the languages and mediums of their choosing. Online Tyari has done tremendously well to deliver on its mission and address the concerns of over 10 million Indians writing the competitive exams for government jobs in multiple languages. Having proven product-market fit for this highly-engaged adoption segment, the company can now go deeper to become an intelligent platform for the best quality multi-lingual educational content in the country. We are proud to be part of this mission and excited to be working with this team to scale this value proposition."

Vikram Chachra, Partner at Eight Capital, said, “Vipin and Bhola belong to an exceptional breed of founders. They combine the clarity of vision and exceptional execution necessary to create India's largest mobile education platform in less than 24 months. The current round of funding will enable OnlineTyari to achieve its mission of transforming the lives of tens of millions of young rural and semi-urban Indians across the nation.”

Prachi Windlass, Education Director, India, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, said, “OT has already disrupted the market for test prep in India by creating a personalized, data-backed solution for a large but often ignored market segment. The platform approach-- that curates content from multiple partners-- enables them to provide high quality exam content with a very short time-to-market. This is very important for this market segment as students may appear for multiple exams and need a one-stop solution. OT will play a huge role in helping students from smaller towns and low-income families access test prep services.”