Pariksha, which helps aspirants prepare for government exams in their regional languages, has raised an undisclosed sum as part of a pre-Series A extension round, it said in a statement on Monday.
The extension financing for the Knoctowl Technologies Pvt. Ltd-operated startup was led by INSEAD Angels, it said.
Those that participated in this round include IIT-Kanpur Angels, Nikhil Vora and Swati Mehra of domestic venture capital firm Sixth Sense Ventures, Temasek India director Saahil Bhatia and Bain principal Sitanshu Shah.
Others include Hinduja Hospitals chief executive officer Gautam Khanna, FDC director Ameya Chadavarkar, Finovate Capital CEO Akshat Birla, Gurinder Ratra of Deloitte, Falkonry director Sheetal Birla and YouGov general manager Deepa Bhatia.
The extension comes after Pune-based Pariksha raised Rs 4 crore (around $580,260) in July last year from Venture Catalysts. The startup incubator and accelerator also took part in this extension round, the company said.
Pariksha was founded in 2015 by Deepak Choudhary, Karanvir Singh Shekhawat, Utkarsh Bagri, and Vikram Shekhawat.
Shekhawat said the startup will use the capital raised in the pre-Series A extension to strengthen its product offering and expand its presence.
Currently, Pariksha operates in 11 states and six languages and claims to have over two million users with over 65,000 paid subscribers.
Deals in ed-tech
The larger ed-tech segment in India has been the object of investor attention over the last few years. The most heavily funded startup is Byju's, which is part of the unicorn club of startups.
Online tutorial platform Lido Learning earlier this month raised around $13.5 million as part of its Series B financing. Also this month, venture capital firms Matrix Partners and SAIF Partners invested $4 million (Rs 30 crore) in ed-tech platform Camp K12.
In January, Gurugram-based DoubtNut raised $15 million in its Series A round of funding led by Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings. Sequoia's Surge was an early investor in DoubtNut.
In the same month, growth-stage investor Iron Pillar led a Rs 60-crore (around $8.3 million) Series B round in Testbook, which operates a platform focused on government examination preparations.
