Delhi-based GradeStack Pvt Ltd, which provides web- and mobile-based education courses under the same brand name, has raised an undisclosed amount in investment from Times Internet Limited (TIL). GradeStack, which was part of TIL’s TLabs startup acceleration programme last year, had already secured Rs 10 lakh as part of the programme.
“Most publishers and large institutes have a huge repository of learning material that has not been used either on web or on mobile. GradeStack takes this content and makes the whole learning experience more engaging by adding elements such as assessments, flashcards, discussions, and connecting students who are taking similar courses,†said co-founder and product head, Vibhu Bhushan.
GradeStack was founded in August 2012 by the trio of Vibhu Bhushan, Shobhit Bhatnagar and Sanjeev Kumar. Prior to starting Grade Stack, they had worked with different companies such as Yahoo, Opera Solutions, Infosys and Naukri. GradeStack is a mobile-first course store, which aims to make education more social, interactive and readily available. The platform offers more than 30 courses, including GRE, CFA, CBSE boards, IBPS (Bank Clerk/PO), CA CPT, CAT and Java. The company also offers an Android-based app and will soon come up with the iOS version. GradeStack claims it has seen more than four lakh downloads across more than 30 courses over the past eight months.
The startup generates revenues by selling premium courses, while content publishers who wish to use those courses for their own audience pay licence fees. The company also partners with educational publishers to create mobile-friendly courses sold through the marketplace. The startup mainly competes with qlurn, WizIQ and Attano.
Online education space has seen a lot of action, of late. Early this week, Chennai-headquartered Everest Edusys & Solutions Pvt Ltd, which provides interactive exhibit centres for science learning for the K-12 segment under the brand name QED (Quest Explore Discover), bagged under $1 million in Series A funding led by Lok Capital. Recently, Skyfi Labs Pvt Ltd, a Bangalore-based education products and services startup focusing on Indian engineering students, received an undisclosed amount in funding from Chennai Angels, with participation from Spark Capital.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)