Education Aggregator Rise India Plans To Invest INR 35 Cr In Elearning Startups

With an aim to become a one-stop technology window for all schools and colleges, Gurgaon-based Rise India, an aggregator in the education sector, has announced its plans to invest INR 35 Cr. in elearning startups this year.

Rise India believes that Education and Employability will become the most dominant factors for India to become an economic superpower. The organisation has created an integrated ecosystem that provides affordable but high quality education, vocational training, skill development, high-end training, e-learning and digital education solutions to people at large.

Founded in 2012, the startup has acquired training firm ICFE for INR 10 Cr. in 2012, has a joint venture with Coimbatore based RVS Group, and also has a minority stake in Delhi-based English training firm Visionet.

Rise India with the help of Spark Education (P) Ltd. currently is a leading player in School Management and manages around 150+ schools, 30 Junior Colleges, 35 Pre schools in India. Speaking on the growth of the company, Ajay Chhangani, the co-founder said “We plan to reach over 1,000 schools in the next two years.” The Gurgaon-headquartered company provides training and placement to 50,000+ students in 6 industries which includes retail, IT, BSFI and construction.

It has managed to get profits within two years and is serving in various central and state govt agencies/departments/Ministries for execution of Skill Development and vocational training projects to help unemployed youth create livelihood for themselves and families.

The startup has a network of 150+ skill development centres across Rajasthan, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra.

K Ganesh, an education entrepreneur who has sold his startup Tutorvista to British firm Pearson, said he was also actively looking to invest in companies in the sector through his firm Growth Story. “This sector is ripe for disruption. There is a generational shift contributed by internet, social media and smartphones,” he added.

Recent developments in online education space –

• Recently, Mumbai-based private equity investment firm, Matrix Partners India had invested an undisclosed amount in visit based experiential learning programs platform Purple Squirrel Eduventures.
• Bangalore-based online professional certification platform Simplilearn had raised $15 Mn Series C round of funding led by Mayfield Fund, with existing investors Kalaari Capital and Helion Venture Partners.
• The Delhi-based online education startup, Englishleap.com, owned by Leap Learning Solutions Pvt Ltd had raised an undisclosed amount of funding from financial technology company ANALEC.
• The Delhi-based MeritNation, an elearning platform which targets school students (Class 1-12) across various educational boards like CBSE and ICSE among others in India plans to launch six new offline digital learning centres, starting with Chandigarh and Lucknow.
• Media industry veteran and serial entrepreneur Ronnie Screwvala had announced his plans to launch online education startup, called U Education. The new venture will initiate with an investment of INR 100 Cr. that will focus only on higher education.
• Villgro, an impact investment firm, had announced INR 20 Cr. fund to invest in education startups working primarily in areas pertaining to improving learning outcomes for school-going children and skills training for urban youth.

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