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Also in this letter:
■ Moveworks wants to make India its new HQ, says founder
■ India aims to be #1 startup destination: Piyush Goyal
■ Alleged creators of Sulli Deals, Bulli Bai apps get bail
Classplus raises $70 million amid post-Covid shift in edtech space
Bhaswat Agarwal (left) and Mukul Rustagi, cofounders at Classplus
Edtech startup Classplus has raised $70 million in its latest round of funding, co-led by Alpha Wave Global and Tiger Global, at an estimated valuation of about $600 million.
The company had mopped up $65 million just eight months ago.
Founded in 2018 by Mukul Rustagi and Bhaswat Agarwal, Classplus is a software platform that allows educators and content creators to build their presence online, digitise their offline tuition centres, and sell their courses online.
The company claims it has seen adoption from teachers serving kindergarten to grade 12, and those who offer exam prep. Even non-academic content creators in areas such as fitness, lifestyle, personal finance, language training and programming have joined the platform, it said.
Edtech after Covid: Since the waning of the pandemic, edtech firms have stepped up their tie-ups with traditional schools and educational bodies to ensure the continuity of their online instructions.
Meeta Sengupta, an education policy expert, said the hybrid (online and offline) learning model works well as it helps students learn at their pace online while building their social skills at school.
Who’s doing what: Last week, Maharashtra’s School Education and Sports Department partnered with Khan Academy to help students in Classes 1-10 in government schools learn maths in Marathi.
- Stemrobo has tied up with 2,000 schools across India for in-class education and one-on-one coding sessions in artificial learning, robotics and machine learning.
- Lead, an edtech unicorn, provides material to over 4,000 schools in more than 400 cities, and reaches about 1.6 million students and 25,000 teachers.
Omnichannel: Some edtech firms are going as far as to set up offline centres, embracing the omnichannel model.
- Earlier this month, Unacademy launched its first ‘experience store’ in Delhi and said it plans to open many more in the coming months. These stores, it said, would focus on new users looking to take up Unacademy courses, but existing Unacademy users would also be able to meet their teachers there.
- Byju’s also recently announced its plans to double down on its offline play through the launch of ‘Byju’s Tuition Centre’. Over the course of 2021, the company has launched 80 offline centres across 23 cities and is looking to scale that up to 500 centres across 200 cities this year.
Also Read: Higher education, lifelong learning to drive edtech market growth, says Redseer report
Other Done Deals
■ Health tech startup Qure.ai (Qure) has raised $40 million in a funding round led by Novo Holdings and HealthQuad, and supported by existing investor MassMutual Ventures, the company said.
■ EdgeGrid, a B2B enterprise clean-tech platform, has raised $6 million in a round led by Lightrock India, with participation from Theia Ventures and other angel investors. It will use the funds to strengthen its technology, beef up its team, and for expansion.
■ Paperplane, an AI-first digital clinic, said on Tuesday it has raised Rs 3 crore in a funding round led by Cornerstone Venture Partners Fund. The round also saw participation from existing investors LetsVenture and 100X.VC, and various angel investors.
■ AI-enabled upskilling and career development platform Seekho has raised $3 million in a funding round led by Sequoia Surge, with participation from the family office of the JM Financial Group, LetsVenture, Trica, Super Morpheus, and Yuj Ventures.
Moveworks wants to make India its new headquarters, says founder
Moveworks, the artificial intelligence (AI) platform that automates support at work, announced its entry into the Indian market.
“Our goal is to really make India a new headquarters for us,” said founder Bhavin Shah. The company already has 20 employees in India and plans to double this in six months.
At the new office, located in Bengaluru, team members will perform groundbreaking research and development, establish strategic partnerships, and rise to senior leadership roles, the company said.
Onwards and upwards: Shah said that the company is focussing on finding the right talent, and continuing to scale. “We have plans to expand into Asia… but first and foremost, the reason for employing our efforts and resources in India is to leverage the engineering talent here,” Shah said.
What it does: Moveworks is an AI company that develops platforms designed for large enterprises. It uses natural language understanding (NLU), probabilistic machine learning, and automation to resolve workplace requests.
Its customers include LinkedIn, Broadcom, Docusign and it plans to onboard several Indian companies as well.
Funding: Founded in 2016, Moveworks raised $200 million in its seed round in June 2021 at a valuation of $2.1 billion. It has so far raised around $300 million in total.
Tweet of the day
India aims to be world’s #1 startup destination, says Piyush Goyal
Piyush Goyal, Union minister of commerce and industry, said on Tuesday that India’s goal is to be the world’s top startup destination.
Addressing a session called ‘Gateway to Growth – Roundtable on Indian Startup Ecosystem’ in Abu Dhabi, Goyal said: “Today we are the third-largest startup ecosystem, but our aspiration is to be the world’s number one startup destination.”
“I would urge all of you from the startup world to go the extra mile and take the startup story to all the remote places, villages, small towns, northeastern India and other regions,” he added.
On the government’s role in promoting startups, he said that India aims to provide a level playing field and the best business ecosystem.
He also invited investors in the UAE to back Indian startups.
Alleged creators of Sulli Deals, Bulli Bai apps granted bail
The alleged creators of the controversial ‘auction’ apps ‘Sulli Deals’ and ‘Bulli Bai’ were granted bail by a Delhi court on Monday.
The court granted bail to Niraj Bishnoi, accused in the ‘Bulli Bai’ case, and Omkareshwar Thakur, the alleged creator of ‘Sulli Deals’, on humanitarian grounds.
Grotesque apps: In July 2021, an app called ‘Sulli Deals’ was discovered by Twitter users. The app published photographs of several Muslim women – especially those with prominent voices on social media – without their consent and encouraged users to participate in their ‘auction’.
In January 2022, a similar app called Bulli Bai was found. According to the statement by the Delhi police, the “Bulli Bai” app was developed in November 2021 and updated in December.
Both apps were hosted on the open-source platform GitHub.
Buoyant Bitcoin helps market cruise past $2 trillion
The total market cap of all cryptocurrencies crossed $2 trillion after bitcoin hit $47,765 on Monday, breaking through the narrow $34,000-$44,000 range it’s traded in for most of 2022.
Surprisingly stable: In contrast to volatile equity markets, traditional currencies, and even safe-haven commodity gold, bitcoin is proving itself to be surprisingly resilient amidst the global chaos. From a low of just above $40,000 on March 21, it has gained 18% through a steady grind.
Also Read: Bitcoin erasing 2022’s losses have bulls predicting more gains
Monday’s milestone triggered market-wide short liquidations worth over $300 million, the highest single-day tally since at least early December, according to Coinglass.com.
Renewed optimism: US treasury secretary Janet Yellen said in a March 25 interview with CNBC that despite her own scepticism about the asset class, “there are benefits from crypto and we recognise that innovation in the payment system can be a healthy thing”.
Today’s ETtech Top 5 newsletter was curated by Aishwarya Dabhade and Zaheer Merchant in Mumbai. Graphics and illustrations by Rahul Awasthi.
