Novoy Software Pvt Ltd, which operates the vernacular language-focussed education-technology platform Entri, has raised an additional $1.7 million (Rs 12.71 crore at current exchange rates) as part of its pre-Series A funding round.
The Kochi-based company has raised a total of $3.1 million in this funding round, it said in a statement. It had raised $1.4 million in February.
The fresh capital infusion and the overall funding has been led by early-stage investment firm Good Capital. Other companies in Good Capital’s portfolio include social commerce startups Meesho and Simsim, financial services platform Wealthy and location services company HyperTrack
Other participants in Entri's funding round include angel investors from India and the US, including HyperTrack founder Kashyap Deorah and BigBasket human resources head Hari TN.
Entri was founded by Mohammed Hisamuddin and Rahul Ramesh in 2017. It is part of the Boston-based ed-tech accelerator LearnLaunch.
The company functions as an educational platform for job aspirants. It provides content such as mock and adaptive tests, video lessons and flash cards in local languages to help candidates seeking both public- and private-sector jobs.
The startup will use the funds to produce more content and ramp up marketing operations.
Hisamuddin said users understand a topic better when the content is in their mother tongue rather than in English. “This is the problem Entri is solving,” he added.
Good Capital partner Arjun Malhotra said the firm was confident of its investment in Entri because of rapid growth and the large potential of the local language learning segment.
Entri claims it has seen a 100% rise in new users and a 150% growth in revenue since the imposition of a nationwide lockdown in late March to control the spread of the coronavirus pandemic in India.
Deals in ed-tech
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.
Just last week, Vedantu Innovation Pvt. Ltd raised Series D funding round led by US-based investment firm Coatue Management. Flinto and iNurture have also raised funding during this month.
Last month, the ed-tech arm of Sai Estate Consultants Chembur Pvt. Ltd raised funding from actor Suniel Shetty while Edvizo Media Pvt. Ltd. secured capital from Inflection Point Ventures.
There have been acquisitions in the space, too. Unacademy, which is backed by the likes of Facebook Inc., struck its third reported acquisition of the year last week by picking up a majority stake in Mastree. Other companies it has acquired are medical education platform PrepLadder and online exam preparation startup Kreatryx.
The most heavily-funded startup in the space is Byju's, which is part of the unicorn club of startups to be valued at $1 billion or more.
