DigiBook Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which operates digital learning startup KopyKitab, has raised an undisclosed sum from a clutch of institutional and angel investors.
Participants in this round include the Singapore-based Pactolus Ventures and the Stanford Angels network led by Paula Mariwala, the startup said in a statement.
Individual investors Praveen Gandhi, Jeenendra Bhandari, Mohit Dubey and Manoj Mehta also put in money in this round.
KopyKitab was set up in 2014 by Sumeet Verma and Amit Shrivastava. The company says its platform operates as a one-stop destination for students in the higher education category, offering solutions including personalised learning for coursework and competitive examinations.
It will use the capital it has raised for enhancing its technological infrastructure with a focus on tutorials as well as building out its ecosystem in the higher education vertical.
“The way it [KopyKitab] has created an ecosystem with the top publishers in the country, no other company has reached that trust level with the IP holders, gained deep insights about the market faster,” Gandhi said in a statement.
Verma – who is the company’s CEO – said the startup is aiming to address the underserved higher education market by focussing on the needs of students in different regions.
The company claims a user base of five million, with six million app downloads and a presence in over 400 campuses. It also says it has recorded a growth rate of nearly 200% in the past six to seven months, with a minimum average reading time on its platform now at 25 minutes per session.
According to VCCEdge, the data research arm of Mosaic Digital, the company reported net sales of Rs 4.1 crore for the 2018-19 financial year, with losses of Rs 71.3 lakh.
In January 2018, the company secured funding from the Education Catalyst Fund, which is managed by the global philanthropic organisation Michael and Susan Dell Foundation-backed CBA Capital.
Deals in the ed-tech space
Ed-tech startups have received a lot of attention from investors and end-users this year, with Covid-19-induced lockdowns necessitating the need for digital-first education solutions.
Last month, Unacademy added two more marquee names to its investor list – Tiger Global Management and Dragoneer Investment Group – in a fresh funding round that valued the startup at $2 billion. Byju's, India's first ed-tech unicorn, also raised fresh capital this year. It also bought the VC-backed WhiteHat Jr, which focuses on coding education, for $300 million in August.
Earlier this week, the civil services-focussed Habitat raised Rs 5 crore ($676,700) in its seed round of funding from investors including Unitus Ventures and Whiteboard Capital, which is a sector-agnostic venture capital firm started by Freecharge co-founder Sandeep Tandon.
Also last month, VCCircle exclusively reported that upGrad, the ed-tech firm co-founded by Ronnie Screwvala, had marked its entry into the test-prep segment through the acquisition of a firm that also maintains an offline presence.
