Skilling Platform Masai School Raises INR 38.62 Cr

Bengaluru-based edtech startup Masai School has raised INR 38.62 Cr ($4.77 Mn) in a Pre-Series B funding round led by India Quotient and On Mauritius.

India Quotient and On Mauritius invested INR 15.81 Cr ($1.95 Mn) each. Existing investor Unitus Ventures also returned to participate, investing INR 7 Cr in the funding round, the edtech’s filing with the Registrar of Companies (RoC) shows.

The board at Masai School passed a special resolution to issue 2,403 pre-Series B2 compulsory convertible preference shares (CCPS) at an issue price of INR 1,60,707 per share to raise INR 38.62 Cr or $4.77 Mn.

Masai School last raised funding from 21 angel investors in October 2021, including Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Kunal Shah. Before that, the early-stage edtech raised $5 Mn in its Series A round of funding.

In 2020, Masai raised $2.5 Mn in its Pre-Series A funding round. Hence, Masai School has raised $12.5 Mn in funding to date, including the latest round.

Founded in 2019 by Prateek Shukla, Nrupul Dev and Yogesh Bhat, Masai School is a skilling platform that trains tech aspirants who have completed high school education in full-stack web and Android application development.

Masai School has a ‘Study Now and Pay Later’ business model. The startup starts charging students for the course only after receiving the first paycheck of INR 5 Lakh per annum or above.

Further, it offers seven-month courses in the said tech stream and once the aspirants clear their courses, Masai School helps them get jobs via its placement network.

This network includes startups including Swiggy, Ola, Meesho, CoinSwitch Kuber, Cleartrip and Paytm and companies such as Samsung. To date, Masai School has tied up with more than 2,000 companies to help them find industry-ready tech talent.

Masai reported INR 2.47 Cr in revenue in FY21, a 4.7X increase compared to FY20. On the flip side, the edtech startup’s losses also rose 3.5X to INR 6.78 Cr during the last fiscal.

The investment in Masai School comes at a time when India’s edtech segment has been experiencing revenue shrinkage with the opening of schools and coaching centres.

Edtech startups have also come under fire for massive layoffs being conducted in the sector. According to Inc42’s ‘Indian Startup Layoff Tracker‘, edtech has seen the most layoffs. So far, 14 edtech startups, including four of the seven edtech unicorns, laid off 6,898 employees.

The development was first reported by Entrackr.