Pune-based ed-tech firm Makkajai Edu Tech Pvt. Ltd has secured $250,000 in seed funding from a clutch of investors, including Ananth Narayanan, CEO of Myntra and Anand Chandrasekaran, former chief product officer at Snapdeal, it said in a statement.
Other investors who participated in the round included Mekin Maheshwari, former chief people officer at Flipkart; Ravi Garikipati, head of engineering at Flipkart; Divyesh Shah, CEO of Indiabulls Ventures; and Hong Kong-based Swastika Company Ltd that invests in India and Africa. The deal was carried out via LetsVenture platform.
The company will use the funds to develop its technology, design and marketing teams.
“With the current fundraise, we are running several experiments – both on the content and distribution side,†said Roopesh Shenoy, co-founder and CEO at Makkajai.
The firm provides a learning platform which comprises math games for children from grades 1 to 5. It launched its first math game, Monster Math Classic, in November 2014 and released two more iterations – Monster Math and Monster Math Duels – in December 2015.
“We compete with most education content companies as well as analytics firms out there, including DreamBox Learning, IXL and Mathletics. Most of these are non-India players,†said Abhishek Awadhani, Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer.
The company claims there have been over 1.5 million downloads. It has 100,000 monthly active users.
The firm’s user base comprises parents and schools in the US, the UK, Australia, Canada and Germany. It launched its app on Android in India in July this year, marking its entry into the Indian market.
“Our revenue stream is through app purchases. Now that we have a lot more content coming on board, we will start shifting to a subscription model which will be launched in India as well,†said Awadhani.
He said by the end of September, the firm will be launching games that will test children on number sense, fractions and decimals.
The 10-member firm was founded by Roopesh Shenoy (CEO), Vinayak Palankar (chief marketing officer), Deep Shah (CTO) and Abhishek Awadhani (chief business officer) in 2014.
The ed-tech space has seen considerable funding activity recently. This week, ed-tech startup Byju’s secured $50 million (Rs 332 crore) in a round co-led by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), the philanthropic foundation of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan in Asia, and Times Internet. The round also saw participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital, Belgium-based Sofina and Lightspeed Ventures.
Online marketplace for study material, Prozo, raised Rs 2.1 crore ($315,000) through preferential allotment of shares from London-based Earlsfield Capital, and two Delhi businessmen, Sailender Solanki and Rajiv Solanki.
The same month, Noida-based ConveGenius Edu Solutions Pvt. Ltd raised equity investment worth Rs 6 crore ($90,000) from the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation.
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