Toppr Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which runs an eponymous ed-tech startup, has raised Rs 350 crore ($46 million) in its Series D round of funding led by UAE-based family investment office Foundation Holdings.
Education-focused private equity firm Kaizen Management Advisors Pvt. Ltd also participated in this round, Mumbai-based Toppr said in a statement.
The fresh funding takes the total that the ed-tech company has raised so far to around Rs 700 crore.
Toppr said it will use the fresh capital to develop an artificial intelligence-based school operating system and launch new platforms for coding. The company claims its school operating system has over 55,000 learners.
Zishaan Hayath, co-founder and chief executive of Toppr, said the operating system will help teachers and schools.
The ed-tech startup was founded in 2013 by IIT Bombay alumni Hayath and Hemanth Goteti. Prior to setting up Toppr, Hayath had founded phone-commerce startup Chaupaati Bazaar. Goteti was head of engineering at e-commerce platform Futurebazaar.com and held stints at Chaupaati Bazaar, Qlip Media, Synechron and Ubiquity Inc.
Hayath is also an angel investor and has invested in firms such as Housing.com and Ola. In September 2010, Chaupaati Bazaar was acquired by Future Group. He also operated an angel investment group called Powai Lake Ventures.
Toppr is a test preparation platform for engineering, medical and secondary school students. It uses artificial intelligence-based machine learning algorithms to personalise learning paths for students, the statement added.
“Toppr’s market leading, proprietary machine learning technology is uniquely positioned to provide an integrated, curated, personalized pedagogy platform, mapped to 22 curriculums, designed to take schools to the future," said Aakash Sachdev, managing director at Foundation Holdings.
The company had raised $35 million in its Series C funding in 2018. In February 2018, Toppr’s valuation stood at $60 million after it had raised an undisclosed sum from Axis Capital Partners.
Deals in ed-tech segment
The ed-tech segment in India has been the object of investor attention over the last few years and especially since the lockdown was imposed in late March to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Prior to that, Lightbox Ventures led a $7.2 million (around Rs 53 crore) pre-Series B funding round in Flinto.
In June, the ed-tech arm of Sai Estate Consultants Chembur Pvt. Ltd raised funding from actor and entrepreneur Suniel Shetty. Also last month, Inflection Point Ventures invested $150,000 in Edvizo Media Pvt. Ltd.
