The funding round also saw participation from Titan Capital, 2am VC, and angel investors
The startup said it would utilise the funds to strengthen the product and team and to grow its community user base 10X within a year
Bluelearn claims to have a community of over 1,50,000 members from over 5,500 colleges and startups across 20+ countries
Social learning platform Bluelearn has raised $3.5 Mn in a seed funding round led by Elevation Capital and Lightspeed. The funding round also saw participation from Titan Capital, 2am VC, and angel investors such as Meesho founders Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal, and Pixxel founder Awais Ahmed.
The startup said it would utilise the funds to further strengthen the product and team as well as to grow its community user base 10X within a year.
The Bengaluru-based community learning startup is actively hiring across functions such as product, tech, marketing, and operations and plans to almost double the team size by the end of the year.
Founded in 2021 by Harish Uthayakumar and Shreyans Sancheti, Bluelearn started as a telegram channel for students to help each other with common questions. Currently, it claims to have a community of over 1,50,000 members from over 5,500 colleges and startups across 20+ countries and growing 30% month on month organically.
Recently, it also launched Bluelearn Work, an internship and freelancing platform, which helps companies hire talent from among its community members. On the Bluelearn platform, community members can find co-founders, teammates, gigs and internships, learn new skills through events and network with people from tech, design, marketing, and other segments.
“Over our journey, we have witnessed that a lot of our community members have started companies together, started freelancing, found internships, made life-long friendships, and met mentors all on Bluelearn. The company is enabling previously unimaginable possibilities, and with this fresh round of funds, we will continue to grow,” Harish Uthayakumar, cofounder of Bluelearn, said.
The fundraise comes at a time when the ongoing funding winter has hit Indian edtech startups the hardest. Besides the funding crunch, reopening of schools and colleges also slowed down the businesses of these startups. As a result, Indian edtech startups, including giants like BYJU’S and Unacademy, have resorted to layoffs. Over 8,000 edtech employees have lost their jobs since 2022.
Besides, edtech startups like Crejo.Fun and Udayy also shut down their operations.
