SUMMARY
DNA-based career guidance startup GenLeap has raised $3.3 Mn (INR 27 Cr) in a Pre-Series A funding round
Embassy REIT's Mike Holland, Tata Realty’s Sanjay Dutt, Olam Food’s Karthikeyan Balasubramanian among others have also participated in the round
GenLeap’s US entity has been listed on the Regulation A Plus IPO market of the US and plans to shortly launch a $50 Mn IPO in that country
DNA-based career guidance startup GenLeap has raised $3.3 Mn (INR 27 Cr) in a Pre-Series A funding round.
Existing investors- Embassy REIT’s Mike Holland, Tata Realty’s Sanjay Dutt, Olam Food’s Karthikeyan Balasubramanian, Deepak Kaul and Manish Dhawan, KPMG’s Neeraj Bansal have taken part in the funding round. Besides, new investors including Policybazaar’s CFO Mandeep Mehta, Embassy REIT’s Vikaash Khdloya, Sunil Bajaj and Yoguen Oukabay were also part of this investment round.
GenLeap’s US entity will be listed on the ‘Regulation A Plus IPO’ market of the US and plans to shortly launch a $50 Mn IPO in that country.
‘Regulation A’ is when companies are exempted from registering for public offerings on the US bourses.
The development comes almost a year after GenLeap secured INR 60 Cr in a seed round from Super’s Vivek Vaidya, Stono River’s Kevin Donlon, Restech Global’s Ayush Singh, Mas Infratech’s Mohit Juneja, Dipon Group’s Rashed Mahmood and Embassy REIT’s Mike Holland.
Founded in 2021 by Sachin Sandhir, Nimish Gupta, Nitin Thakur, Shweta Kataria and Mohit Juneja, the Gurugram-based GenLeap offers DNA-based services for career growth and development, health and wellness, relationship compatibility and disease susceptibility, among others.
Its website says, the startup’s target audience includes students, parents, working professionals, academic institutions and edtech startups. It facilitates students and professionals in ascertaining apt careers while it also enables academic institutions as well as edtech startups in attracting the right students/talent.
“GENLEAP will soon be expanding its geographical footprint and growth in the US, Middle east and other markets and given its global ambitions to become a leading force in the Genomics testing and solutions market, a $90 Bn industry,” Sachin Sandhir, founder and CEO of GenLeap, said.
The startup will utilise the funds from this funding round and from the IPO to expand its marketing and distribution footprint across the globe. Besides, it plans to enter the US, Middle East, and Europe. Further, it plans to use the incoming capital/proceeds from the IPO to build research and development labs globally and expand its research in emerging areas including behavioural genetics.
“Given the huge amount of genetic and personality data and the biobank which we shall handle, GENLEAP is committed to investing heavily in data research, data protection, and data privacy and plans to set up data centres to ensure a fully compliant approach,” said Nimish Gupta, founder and director of GenLeap.
The startup aims to offer services to 100 Mn people in the next five years.
In this space, it competes with the likes of CareerDNA and Absolute Genetic, among others.
After witnessing a boom in 2020 and 2021, India’s edtech segment is striving hard for survival now. As a result, giants including BYJU’S, Unacademy and Vedantu have resorted to several cost cutting measures including laying off scores of employees, downsizing business operations and adopting hybrid business models.
According to the Inc42 layoff tracker, edtech startups have sacked more than 8000 employees in the country from January 2022 until now.
