Tekie, a live coding platform for kids, has recently announced that it has raised $1.5 million in a seed funding round.
The round was led by Silicon Valley-based VC firm GSV Ventures and Multiply Ventures, an early-to-growth stage fund by former e-commerce executives from Myntra, Paytm, Flipkart, and Alibaba. Better Capital also participated in the round.
Founded in 2017 by Anand Verma and Naman Mukund, Tekie is a live coding platform for kids that uses the power of storytelling to make learning to code a movie-like experience. The startup has built the world’s first animated series on coding that guides students through a cinematic journey where they solve problems and challenges using coding concepts like variables and strings, loops, and data structure.
Tekie is on a mission to train innovators and entrepreneurs of the next generation on the right skills they need for the future. It teaches text-based coding, which involves actual coding language syntax rather than basic drag and drop functions provided by competitors. The startup claims to have over 12,000 students learning on its platform.
Explaining about the platform, Anand Verma, Co-founder of Tekie, said in a statement,
“As a first-generation learner, I have seen the transformational impact of education first hand. When we started four years back, our goal was to build a product with a focus on three pillars — put learning outcomes at the forefront, make learning an enjoyable experience, and provide the best teachers to learners. Our animated series, live projects, and gamified learning journey make the course an immersive experience and the students look forward to their sessions.”
Tekie’s classes are a blend of assisted live sessions by mentors with hands-on coding experience and new-age learning methods designed to make learning to code an immersive experience.
Emphasizing the importance of coding as an essential skill for the future, Naman Mukund, Co-founder of Tekie, supplemented,
“Having grown up in a digital-first world, the learning habits of students have evolved and the education system needs to keep up with the changing trends. Coding is not only an essential skill for the future but an effective way to build problem-solving and logical thinking among kids. Coding education is still at a nascent stage in our country, primarily restricted to block-based coding. We want students to go beyond just getting introduced to concepts and learn to write real code. Keeping this in mind, we designed our course to teach text-based coding.”
The company plans to use the newly raised capital to scale its operations to support increasing demand and build a strong team to unlock the next level of growth, according to an official statement.
Mujtaba Wani from GSV Ventures commented on the funding,
“We were impressed by the founding team’s “product first” approach to delivering online coding lessons that has resulted in high customer loyalty and learning impact. Tekie’s best-in-class NPS of 85 affirms that students are realizing value from the distinctive platform. GSV is honored to be backing Anand and Naman on their founding journey.”
Tekie plans to focus on expanding its product offerings and explore new revenue models. The startup has recently launched its B2B offerings where it partners with schools to introduce coding in their curriculum.
Raveen Sastry, Founder of Multiply Ventures and Ex-co-founder of Myntra, also commented,
“Tekie’s unique value proposition and student-centric approach to teaching live coding via a storytelling format is visible in the learning outcome and fits perfectly well into our investment Thesis for EdTech. Their high NPS scores and retention numbers are a reflection of product-market fit. We are thrilled to partner with Anand and Naman to take this offering to as many school-going students as possible.”
The Gurugram-headquartered EdTech startup is also planning to expand its offerings in other markets like in the US, Canada, and the UK after successfully establishing a presence in India.
