Delhi-based AR/VR Startup Simulanis Raises $500K Via Education Catalyst Fund

Delhi-headquartered augmented & virtual reality based ed-tech startup Simulanis has raised $500,000 in a pre-Series A round from Education Catalyst Fund, an early-stage education and skilling fund for low-income groups, reported VCCircle.

Founded in 2013 by Raman Talwar, Simulanis initially started out as an e-learning and skills training company that delivered computer-aided design and training services to engineering students. It subsequently branched out to providing simulated work environments to help train corporate professionals as well.

Later in 2015, the startup theb pivoted to a product-based model and started working on augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies that addressed the pain points in engineering education and industrial training.

Prior to this fresh funding, the startup had raised an undisclosed amount in pre-Series A funding from early-stage investment firm Village Capital and a consortium of investors including India Skills chairman Pawanjit Ahluwalia; Apurva Chamaria, VP and head -- corporate marketing, HCL Technologies; and Mridul Upreti, chief executive officer of Segregated Funds Group at Jones Lang LaSalle.

Earlier, yesterday only, we reported that how despite high growth of AR/VR in Indian market, only 5% of AR/VR startups in India got any capital investment.

A couple of months back only, Bengaluru based AR-enabled interactive educational games startup Play Shifu has raised funding of undisclosed amounf in a pre-Series A round led by IDG Ventures and IDFC-Parampara Fund and, in the same month, followed by $500,000 funding of Kalpnik Technologies, which is a virtual reality-driven spiritual startup.

Prior to this, famous West Indies cricketer Chris Gayle had too invested in a Bangalore based AR startup FlippAR.

In October 2017, another VR & AR startup GridRaster has a raised $2 million in seed funding from a group of venture capital firms.

In May 2017, Chymera VR Inc, a virtual reality advertising platform, had secured funding from a clutch of angel investors, including People Group founder and chief executive Anupam Mittal, Airbnb’s global expansion head Varsha Rao, Google executive Surojit Chatterjee, and HHC Holdings chairman Nirav Choksi.

Delhi-based AR/VR Startup Simulanis Raises $500K Via Education Catalyst Fund

Delhi-headquartered augmented & virtual reality based ed-tech startup Simulanis has raised $500,000 in a pre-Series A round from Education Catalyst Fund, an early-stage education and skilling fund for low-income groups, reported VCCircle.

Founded in 2013 by Raman Talwar, Simulanis initially started out as an e-learning and skills training company that delivered computer-aided design and training services to engineering students. It subsequently branched out to providing simulated work environments to help train corporate professionals as well.

Later in 2015, the startup theb pivoted to a product-based model and started working on augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies that addressed the pain points in engineering education and industrial training.

Prior to this fresh funding, the startup had raised an undisclosed amount in pre-Series A funding from early-stage investment firm Village Capital and a consortium of investors including India Skills chairman Pawanjit Ahluwalia; Apurva Chamaria, VP and head -- corporate marketing, HCL Technologies; and Mridul Upreti, chief executive officer of Segregated Funds Group at Jones Lang LaSalle.

Earlier, yesterday only, we reported that how despite high growth of AR/VR in Indian market, only 5% of AR/VR startups in India got any capital investment.

A couple of months back only, Bengaluru based AR-enabled interactive educational games startup Play Shifu has raised funding of undisclosed amounf in a pre-Series A round led by IDG Ventures and IDFC-Parampara Fund and, in the same month, followed by $500,000 funding of Kalpnik Technologies, which is a virtual reality-driven spiritual startup.

Prior to this, famous West Indies cricketer Chris Gayle had too invested in a Bangalore based AR startup FlippAR.

In October 2017, another VR & AR startup GridRaster has a raised $2 million in seed funding from a group of venture capital firms.

In May 2017, Chymera VR Inc, a virtual reality advertising platform, had secured funding from a clutch of angel investors, including People Group founder and chief executive Anupam Mittal, Airbnb’s global expansion head Varsha Rao, Google executive Surojit Chatterjee, and HHC Holdings chairman Nirav Choksi.

Delhi Based Simulanis Raises Pre-Series A Funding from Village Capital and Others

Village Capital and a group of angel investors, including Pawanjit Ahluwalia (Chairman, India Skills) Apurva Chamaria (VP and Head - Corporate Marketing, HCL Technologies) and Mridul Upreti (CEO, Segregated Funds Group – Jones Lang LaSalle) have made a Pre-Series A investment in Simulanis, a Delhi-based Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality (AR-VR) technology development company that creates e-learning, skills development, and gamified content.

Simulanis has developed hardware agnostic, gamified, mobile and computer training applications for the education, skilling and industrial training sectors. The company is currently working with two of the biggest ten pharma companies to train their workforce in India using AR-VR technology. The company is training over one thousand workers across multiple sites at the moment and expects to be training five thousand workers in a year’s time. The company is also conducting pilots with some automotive giants in the country to train their floor staff.

With this round of funding, Simulanis will expand its sales team to dive deep into the pharma and automotive sector while exploring other domains for which they can develop gamified AR-VR content.

Simulanis participated in Village Capital’s Education India 2016 investment-readiness program, and was selected for investment by a group of their peers. Village Capital has made more than 75 early stage investments across the United States, South America, Europe, Africa and India including eight investments in India in companies: Simpa Networks, Parvata Foods, SevaMob, iKure, Bodhi Health Education, Skill Angels, Sudiksha and Experifun.

“India will require 119 million more skilled workers by 2022 across 24 sectors in the economy, according to the National Skills Development Corporation. We are very excited to welcome Simulanis into the Village Capital portfolio to address this pressing skill shortage through the application of AR-VR technology,” said Victoria Fram, Managing Director, VilCap Investments. “We believe the cost-efficiency and efficacy of their training solution, coupled with their focus on scale, will position them well in a sector that’s attracting more and more attention.”

“Simulanis’ technology offers corporations a clear path to reducing attrition and improving efficiency by better preparing workers in a much shorter span of time, and offers individuals an opportunity to continue building the skills to be competitive in a quickly-evolving workforce,” Fram continued.

“Village Capitals’ program gave us a lot of confidence and belief in our tech-capabilities,” said Raman Talwar, Founder/CEO of Simulanis. “From a pool of 200 companies, the program, backed by a unique peer-review ranking methodology, pitched us against 9 of India’s top education-focused tech companies. We were delighted to receive great mentorship and support during the program from Village Capital’s team and its network of advisors, mentors, and investors. Getting acknowledged by the peer group comprising of some of the best entrepreneurs of the country working in the education domain, delivered immense satisfaction to us and proved our readiness to raise Venture Capital. We are really excited to welcome on board a marquee group of investors who share the same vision with us and can add great value to our company.”

“The VR market globally is expected to touch USD 33.9 billion by 2022. While Simulanis is currently getting a lot of traction in VR with the lucrative pharma and automotive sectors, I see the VR implications in every industrial training use case,” adds investor Apurva Chamaria. “The company is receiving great feedback for its customers and this round of funding will set it on the path of exponential growth.”

Village Capital is an investment firm that finds, trains, and invests in early-stage entrepreneurs with business solutions to major global problems. We build communities around entrepreneurs that increase opportunities for growth and success. Village Capital’s unique model which aims to democratize Venture Capital, puts the fiduciary responsibility of the investment decision in the hands of the entrepreneurs through their peer-selection investment approach which has over time proven to deliver strong results for early-stage businesses and investors and has also won the Harvard Business Review/McKinsey M-Prize for innovation.