Skills-focussed education-technology startup SOAL (School of Accelerated Learning) has raised funding from SARA Investments, the investment wing of the promoters of Munjal Auto Industries Ltd.
The company will use the capital primarily to augment DELTA, its proprietary artificial intelligence-enabled personalised learning assistant, it said in a statement. It will also use the funds to expand other programmes.
Mumbai-based SOAL, operated by Accelerated Learning Edutech Pvt. Ltd, didn’t disclose the amount it raised.
The company was set up in 2017. It follows a hybrid online-offline learning model, with courses in domains such as product engineering and product design. It plans to expand to AI and internet-of-things later this year.
SOAL says its courses help develop on-the-job skills such as knowledge of relevant technologies, logic and soft skills.
“Unfortunately, the discrepancies in the country’s formal education system keep it from fully tapping into this talent prospect. The country is still considerably lagging behind global standards of contemporary education and innovation,” SARA Investments’ Anuj Munjal said.
SOAL was launched by Pratik Agarwal, Raj Desai and Varsha Bhambhani. Agarwal had earlier co-launched startups such as ThinkScream Infomedia and TheLostParty. Desai was Agarwal’s colleague in the same companies. Bhambani, an alumnus of Foothill College in California, was earlier associated with the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
The ed-tech startup says it has so far trained over 400 individuals and that these students have been placed at firms such as Dunzo, ClearTax, ShopClues and FactSet.
In October last year, SOAL raised $300,000 (around Rs 2.1 crore) from early-stage venture firm Astarc Ventures, startup incubator T-Hub’s founder Srinivas Kollipara, fintech firm Zeta’s co-founder Ramki Gaddipatti and BeeCash founder Krishnan Menon.
The investment by Munjal Auto investment arm underscores the continued attractiveness of the larger ed-tech space for investors, with early-stage deals continuing at quick pace even as giants such as Byju’s, Unacademy and Toppr continue to expand through larger cheques and acquisitions.
Last week, VCCircle reported that Everstone-backed published S Chand had taken control of a mobile learning delivery-focussed platform.
In August, healthcare-focussed vocational platform Virohan raised around Rs 20.77 crore across its seed and Series A funding stages from investors including the Keiretsu Forum and the impact-based elea Foundation for Ethics in Globalization.
Also last month, the tutor- and tutor-student connectivity-focussed Teachmint raised an undisclosed sum in a round led by Better Capital, with participation from Titan Capital, the venture firm set up by Snapdeal co-founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal.
