Vidyakul, a vernacular e-learning platform that offers a quality education at affordable prices to children from low-income families, has raised $500,000 in a bridge round led by We Founder circle (WFC).
The round also witnessed participation from other marquee investors including JITO Angel Network and Thinkuvate.
The company plans to utilise funds in expanding the Vidyakul team and enhancing the platform functionality.
Vidyakul is aimed at providing after-school e-learning for the state board students in vernacular languages. It offers courses in maths, physics, and chemistry. The platform also provides curriculum video lessons, study notes, sample papers, question papers and different pricing based on the subject.
Established in 2017 by Tarun Saini, the Gurugram based startup believes that education is best delivered when in one’s own language. Currently, the company is delivering education in 4 languages and has already enabled the same for 10 lakh students from 10 States.
Speaking about the fundraise, Founder and CEO of Vidyakul, Tarun Saini said,
"With the growing internet penetration, the scope of digital learning has widened, and we are exploring the possibilities of the same. E-learning has the capability to address long-standing challenges of – access to quality education, reaching remotest of the areas, student-teacher ratio etc. We have made it easier for students by helping them understand concepts in their own language. So far, we are providing courses for 10 boards, and we plan to add more 3 languages and add courses for 3 state boards by the end of this fiscal."
Vidyakul also offers live lectures and pre-recorded video courses (from Class 9-12) for six state boards. The course content has been developed by local academic experts who have analysed state board exam papers and NCERT books over the last 10 years.
Students can also get their doubts solved in real-time in a classroom-like environment on the app or via Vidyakul’s WhatsApp channels.
Neeraj Tyagi- Co-Founder and CEO, We Founder Circle has said,
"EdTech industry has grown multifold in the last one year itself. In India, the industry holds a lot of scopes, and Vidyakul’s model is aptly designed to cater to the requirements of the population that actually form the majority. The unique approach to deliver quality education in vernacular languages makes it a go-to platform for students from every region in India. In 2017 the number of regional language internet users surpassed English-speaking users and this number will only grow further, and vernacular-based models will gain more relevance."
Vidyakul's mission is to help state board students in Tier-II, III, and IV towns get wider access to online tuitions and after-school coaching in languages like Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, and so on.
Ghanshyam Ahuja, Managing Partner, ThinKuvate said,
"We like Vidyakul because it is a fast-growing "BHARAT" focussed multilingual e-learning platform which is enabling teachers to create online courses for students to access quality education at affordable prices in Tier 2 /3 cities in India."
The startup has attracted marquee investors from the Gujarat state that applaud the success of the brand wherein, despite the pandemic it served more than 2 lakh students from the Gujarat region alone, through its platform.
In April this year, Vidyakul had raised $500,000 in a seed funding round led by Jain International Trade Organisation (JITO) Angel Network.
