New Delhi We Founder Circle (WFC) – a start-up investment platform, in continuation to its mission to fund early-stage start-ups, has invested in Vidyakul, a Vernacular after-school e-learning platform. The Bridge round worth USD 500K lead by We Founder circle and witnessed participation from other marquee investors including JITO Angel Network and Thinkuvate.
Vidyakul is aimed at providing after-school e-learning for the state board students in vernacular languages. The platform understands that education is best delivered when in one’s own language. The edtech startup is currently delivering education in 4 languages and has already enabled the same for 10 lakh students from 10 States.
Vidyakul has attracted the marquee investors from the Gujarat state that applaud the success of the brand wherein, despite the pandemic it served more than 2 lakh students from the Gujarat region alone, through its platform. Brand has raised USD 500K in seed round early this year only.
Mr Gaurav Singhvi Co-Founder, We Founder Circle, who is based in the Gujarat region added “We have started helping Vidyakul since 2019, and have invested $100K in Jan 2021 as we were very bullish on vernacular eLearning consumer growth. Since he launched the Gujarati language after starting with Hindi, a lot of our investors & local business community were keen to actively work with them. That is how with overwhelming demand from the Gujarati community we are able to reinvest $250K in this round again. This speaks a volume about the potential of Vidyakul and the strategic investor base of WFC community.”
“We have been getting overwhelming responses from students from across the states. With the growing internet penetration, the scope of digital learning has widened, and we are exploring the possibilities of the same. E-learning has the capability to address long-standing challenges of – access to quality education, reaching remotest of the areas, student-teacher ratio etc. We, on top of that, have made it easier for students by helping them understand concepts in their own language. So far, we are providing courses for 10 boards, and we plan to add more 3 languages and add courses for 3 state boards by end of this fiscal,” said Mr Tarun Saini- Founder, Vidyakul.
On the investment Mr. Neeraj Tyagi- Co-Founder and CEO, We Founder Circle affirmed “EdTech industry has grown multifold in the last one year itself. In India, the industry holds a lot of scopes, and Vidyakul’s model is aptly designed to cater to the requirements of the population that actually form the majority. The unique approach to deliver quality education in vernacular languages makes it a go-to platform for students from every region in India. In 2017 the number of regional language internet users surpassed English-speaking users and this number will only grow further, and vernacular-based models will gain more relevance.”
“Rural education in India has been the prime focus of the government. Vidyakul, majorly focuses on the BHARAT with a huge content bank of ~100k+ video lectures covering 10+ state boards across Maths and Science. We at JITO Angel Network are proud to be part of Vidyakul and are very confident that the founders will lead the company to great heights. Sunil Kumar SInghvi, Vice Chairman JITO Angel Network.”
“We like Vidyakul because it is a fast growing “BHARAT” focussed multi-lingual e-learning platform which is enabling teachers to create online courses for students to access quality education at affordable prices in Tier 2 /3 cities in India”- Mr. Ghanshyam Ahuja, Managing Partner @ ThinKuvate.
The brand plans to utilise funds in expanding the Vidyakul team and enhancing the platform functionality.