Sudiksha Knowledge Solutions raises pre-Series A from Ennovent Impact Investment Holding & others
Hyderabad based Sudiksha Knowledge Solutions, a social enterprise in the education sector, raised an undisclosed pre-series A investment round from the Ennovent Impact Investment Holding, Opes Impact Fund and Sadeesh Raghavan. This investment in Sudiksha is the second round of investment facilitated by the Ennovent Circle, since its launch in June 2012. The first round of investment was undertaken along with Pearson Affordable Learning Fund, First Light Ventures, Eleos Foundation and Village Capital.
Founded by Hyderabad based Naveen Kumar and Nimisha Mittal in 2011, Sudiksha Knowledge Systems aims to provides affordable early childhood education by setting up low-cost pre-school Centre’s in low-income urban and semi-urban regions. Starting with the vision of one student, one teacher, one school at a time, Sudhiksha wants to create a movement for sustainable change. Established in 2011, Sudiksha presently owns and manages 21 preschools in and around Hyderabad managed by local women entrepreneurs.
With this investment, Sudiksha aims to pilot a franchisee model, which will allow the enterprise to scale operations nationally, develop new day care services in addition to the schools and grow its senior management team. Naveen says, “this investment will enable Sudiksha to not only stabilize its existing operations but also further refine new streams of revenue and impact. We are excited that the Ennovent Circle has facilitated a second round of funding into Sudiksha and we hope to further scale our impact on children from low-income communities with this investment.”
According to India’s 2011 census data, India has approximately 99 million children between the ages of 3 – 6 years. While the government runs ‘anganwadis’ to provide pre -school education to over 35 million children beneficiaries, most of these lack basic infrastructure and have severe manpower issues resulting in only 31% of children attending these Centre’s regularly. Private organisations in the pre-school segment are largely unaffordable for low-income communities with fees ranging anywhere between INR 24,000 and 150,000 annually.
It is also the third investment made by Ennovent’s Impact Investment Holding. Speaking about the investment, Saurabh Lahoti, Director – Finance at Ennovent says, “Sudiksha delivers high quality activity based education that is affordable for urban low-income families earning approximately INR 20,000 monthly. By leveraging the franchisee model, Sudiksha can significantly scale its operations and impact while also offering unique entrepreneurship opportunities to low-income communities across India.”
Talking about the quality of education offered at Sudiksha, Narsimalu, a daily wage earner whose child Malesh goes to the Sudiksha Kids Centre in Nacharam further adds, “I know the importance of education as I only studied till class eight and I don’t want my children to suffer like me. The Sudiksha School is close to my house and takes very reasonable fees, also accepting fees in installments. I am happy that my son is learning to speak in English and loves his school and teachers very much.”
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