Ed Tech Startup Smartivity Raises $1M in Pre Series A Round Led by S Chand and Others

New Delhi-based an augmented reality-based ed-tech startup, Smartivity has raised $1 million in a pre-series A round of funding led by publishing firm S Chand and early-stage investment firm AdvantEdge Partners.

Other investors who also participated in the round include Singapore-based fund CFG Offshore Holdings and Silicon Valley-based fund Tandem Capital and a clutch of angel investors.

With this round of funding, the company aims to expand its current portfolio in STEM and augmented reality products to provide interactive learning to kids and also develop IoT (internet of things)-enabled toys and robot-led learning for kids. The funds will also be used to expand its reach and aim for the global market.

In October 2015, the firm which was started by three-IIT Delhi alumni Ashwini Kumar, Apoorva Gupta, Rajat Jain along with Tushar A Amin, had raised $200,000 in a seed round of funding.

The Delhi-based startup has two broad product ranges—STE(A)M (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) learning-based do-it-yourself kits, which have a fundamental scientific concept at the core of each activity, and Smartivity EDGE, their augmented reality-enabled learning activities. It uses augmented reality, a technique that enables superimposing digital objects over physical ones, to help kids understand various concepts.

The user has to download the Smartivity EDGE application, which is available on both Android and iOS to experience the augmented-reality platform.

"Smartivity has shown tremendous growth over the past 12 months with a high focus on product design and execution and has built a portfolio of innovative products," said Gaurav Jhunjhnuwala, director of S Chand Group.

In March this year, S Chand also invested $1 million in Bangalore based home and online tutoring startup FlipClass, along with Blume Ventures. Just four days back, education technology platform Unacademy has raised $500,000 in a funding round led by Blume Ventures.

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Edtech Startup FlipClass Raises $1Mn In Funding From S Chand & Blume Venture

Bangalore based home and online tutoring startup FlipClass has raised $1 million in funding from education content and services provider S Chand and Company Private Limited (S Chand) along with Blume Ventures.

Founded in 2014 by Vineet Dwivedi, an IIT Kanpur graduate, FlipClass is a technology platform that connects tutors and students to provide effective home, online and mobile tutoring solutions. It also has an inbuilt assessment tool to gauge student learning and provide key inputs that help improve performance. The platform recently launched a doubt clearing mobile app FlipTutor, which uses Whatsapp like interface to provide answers in real-time. The company is seed funded by LetsVenture and angel investors.

“FlipClass has an active database of 4,000 students and 10,000 tutors and has delivered over 200,000 hours of home and online tuitions. We are very excited to have S Chand invest in our platform. We will also look to integrate their content with our learning tools and provide a more enriching experience to students.”, said Vineet Dwivedi, Founder and CEO, FlipClass.

“S. Chand aspires to lead the knowledge ecosystem and support management teams building disruptive technologies in the educational services and content space. Investing in FlipClass is a step in this direction.”, said Mr. Gaurav Jhunjhnuwala, Director, S. Chand.

“At Blume, we are core believers of edtech and its ongoing relevance for years to come. Even with the advent of online solutions, home tuition and tutors continues to be a huge market with innate problems of discovery and selection. This is where we believe FlipClass will play a significant role by aggregating tutors and parents onto a single platform. Equipped with unique tech tools that help parents assess their child's progress, FlipClass has a high engagement and retention rate,” said Karthik Reddy of Blume Venture Advisors.

The S. Chand Group has been investing in the fast growing edtech space, having completed five transactions since 2014 and created a presence in smart class solutions, tablet-based content delivery, STEM based activity kits, home tutoring and online test preparation. The company managed by Dinesh Jhunjhnuwala (Vice Chairman) and Himanshu Gupta (Joint Managing Director) is content and service provider in the Indian education sector, publishing around 35 million textbooks and providing smart class and tablet solutions to schools.

FlipClass is the market leader in providing good quality learning through its online and home tuition services. In the thriving private tuition industry in India, FlipClass differentiates itself by providing qualified and passionate teachers to students through a stringent tutor qualifying process along with powerful technology platform using big data analytics.