IEIF Invests In Two Indian Education Technology Startups; Report Bee & Guru-G

Dell Foundation backed India Educational Investment Fund (IEIF), invested an undisclosed amount in two Indian education technology startups namely Report Bee Edusys Pvt Ltd, a cloud-based deep learning portal and Guru-G Learning Labs (India) Pvt Ltd, a gamified platform for teachers.

Vishal Bharat, director of corporate business advisors, who is the investment manager for IEIF told BS, “Both companies function at the intersection of education, social impact and technology. They bring a high degree of commitment and passion to the education space while leveraging technology to enhance user experiences. It is a high-growth space where we are seeing a lot of exciting new ideas from young entrepreneurs.”

As for the two startups, this is their first round of funding.

Chennai-based Report Bee was founded in 2010 by Ananth Mani. It is a cloud-based deep learning platform for the education sector to improve learning using powerful data analytics. The company claims that its platform is already being used in 251 schools across Asia among more than 2,00,000 students and 10,000 teachers.

Besides, the firm is also working with global publishers and leading education boards to provide useful insights on learning impact.

Report Bee will use the funds to accelerate its product development and expand into domestic and international markets.

The other startup that has raised funding through IEIF is Bangalore-based Guru-G. The startup was founded in 2013 by Amruth Ravindranath and claims to be the world’s first gamified platform for teaching and teacher training.

In simple terms, Guru-G is a friendly mentor to a teacher in the form of an app. It helps teachers know when to use which teaching techniques by continuously learning what is improving student performance in their class. Since its establishment, the startup has worked with over 350 schools across five states in the country.

The raised capital will be used to expand business in the schools as well as in the publishers market.

Speaking on this development, Ravindranath, founder of Guru-G said, “There has been little fundamental change in the way teaching takes place in India in the last 50 years. We aim to change that with our scalable, content-agnostic platform, which makes it fun and easy for teachers to learn new ways of teaching. We have demonstrated our relevance and impact in markets as different as rural Rajasthan and the US. We are now mainly focused on scaling up our presence in schools as well as strengthening our product to meet B2C demand.”

US-based single member IEIF fund aims to support early-stage investment, incubation and mentoring in the educational sector. It was established by Michael & Susan Dell Foundation. The fund will be investing in education startups that support urban, low income families in India.

The foundation has also backed third-party social impact VC funds such as Unitus Seed Fund and Menterra Social Impact Fund.

Educational startups are on their ascent ever since people realized their utility which led to enormous growth in this sector.

Recently this year, Delhi-based online education startup EduKart, that helps students in connecting with educational institutions raised $1 Mn from cricket legend Yuvraj Singh’s venture capital fund, YouWeCan Ventures and others.

Meanwhile, Acumen Fund, which is a social venture capital investor had also invested in two Hyderabad-based educational startups namely, Ignis Careers with $250K and Standard of Excellence in Education and Development(SEED) with $650K.

Other players in this segment include elearning startup Embibe, Toppr, Testbook, Sigrid Education, FlipClass, Meritnation, Simplilearn and Englishleap.

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