Pariksha, which helps aspirants prepare for government exams in their regional languages, has raised Rs 4 crore ($580,260 at current exchange rate) as part of its ongoing pre-Series A round from incubator and accelerator Venture Catalysts.
In a statement, co-founder Karanvir Singh Shekhawat said that the platform, owned by Knoctowl Technologies Pvt. Ltd, will use the investment to strengthen its product offerings, improve back-end operations and expand presence across India.
“We developed Pariksha as an all-in-one empowerment platform, helping students to prepare for examinations in the most convenient and enriched manner,” Singh said.
Venture Catalysts co-founder and president Apoorv Ranjan Sharma said the incubator is confident of its investment because of the growth potential of the education-technology segment as well as Pariksha’s vision.
The startup, which was founded in 2015 by Deepak Choudhary, Karanvir Singh Shekhawat, Utkarsh Bagri, and Vikram Shekhawat from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur and the Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, operates across six states in the country. It claims to have acquired over one million mobile-first users with over 25,000 paid subscribers.
Pariksha’s platform allows users to learn, practice and prepare for state government job exams. It has also launched a physical prepaid subscription card to enable offline transactions in rural areas.
Venture Catalysts
The Mumbai-based incubation platform was set up in December 2015 by Anuj Golecha, Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, Anil Jain and Gaurav Jain. It usually invests between $250,000 and $1 million in an early-stage startup.
Last week, VCCircle reported that it had invested an undisclosed sum in Vested, an investment platform enabling Indian investors to invest in the US stock market.
In May, Venture Catalysts backed Rare Planet, a Kolkata-based e-commerce startup that sells handicrafts made by local artisans.
Its other recent investments include WiFi and data network aggregator EasyFi, snacks brand Keeros Foods Pvt. Ltd, online procurement platform for restaurants Adurcup and rental accommodation space provider Grexter.
In April, snacks and sweets brand Haldiram’s invested an undisclosed sum in Venture Catalysts to facilitate more investments in the packaged foods segment.