Kidext Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which operates parent-focused child services platform PiggyRide, has raised Rs 14 crore ($1.86 million at current exchange rate) in a pre-Series A funding round.
Investors in this pre-Series A round include Singapore-based venture capital firm JAFCO Investment Asia Pacific, and Artha Venture Fund, whose portfolio companies include Daalchini and LenDenClub.
PiggyRide, set up last year by Manish Tewari and Rohan Kaushal, says it helps parents discover, review and book courses and extracurricular activities for their children. It also provides transport services for children and live classes.
It will use the capital it has raised to scale up its product and engineering teams while also expanding its category offerings to meet parents’ requirements. The company has also launched financing platform PiggyFinance, which is targeted at parents with lower disposable incomes.
“Covid-19 has further accelerated the need for parents to think more deeply about their child’s academic, extracurricular, and mental wellness needs, while at the same time it has prompted them to seek support in payment of school fees to ease out the financial burden,” Tewari said.
Artha Venture Fund growth partner Vinod Keni said the firm was confident of its investment because of PiggyRide addressing the need for a parent-focused marketplace.
“We are very bullish on the company’s two latest product launches in the financial services and education space, which are aimed at making PiggyRide a full-stack ecosystem,” JAFCO Asia director Supriya Singh said.
Tewari, a graduate of IIT-BHU Varanasi, had previously co-founded Koovs and Pokkt. Kaushal, a graduate of IIT Delhi, has nine years of experience working with startups like Ola and Koovs.
PiggyRide initially focused on providing transport services. In November last year, the company raised Rs 7.5 crore (a little more than $1 million) in a funding round led by JAFCO. A clutch of angel investors including InMobi Group founder and CEO Naveen Tewari also took part in the round.