Round 3, Cuemath - Math learning startup raises $15 million from Google investment fund and Sequoia India

Three and a half-year-old math learning startup Cuemath has bagged its third infusion of external funding, this time rounding up support to the tune of $15 million in a Series B round from Sequoia India and CapitalG, formerly known as Google Capital, the growth equity investment fund of Google’s parent company.

Founded in 2013, Cuemath is an after-school math excellence programme for children between the KG and Standard 8 levels, and is offered through home-based centres, which are managed and run by trained and certified Cuemath Teachers. They now run over 2,000 centres educating more than 10,000 students across the country. With the latest influx of funds, Cuemath aims to expand to more cities across the country and extend its reach considerably by March 2018, by establishing 5,000 centres across the country. They also plan to train 40,000 children through the programme. The funds raised will also be deployed towards making their learning system more powerful.

CapitalG, which led the round, said that they believe in Cuemath's vision and approach to bridge the gap of quality education in India through tech. “Cuemath has scaled with great unit economics and capital efficiency. We are happy to be supporting Cuemath on the quest of transforming the way math is experienced by children across the globe,” says Kaushik Anand, CapitalG’s Head of India Investments.

Cuemath’s model is more appealing because it’s “not regular tuition”, but an after-school math learning programme that has a three-pronged approach – (1) school math, (2) mental aptitude (verbal, non-verbal, logical and calculation skills), and (3) creative reasoning (to develop out-of-the-box thinking).

Cuemath's model creates not one but two sets of beneficiaries - the children who learn and excel at math on the one hand, and on the other, educated women and qualified homemakers who can seize this inviting home-based career opportunity and get back in the game. Many women who chose to become Cuemath Teachers are now financially independent, earning significant incomes through a home-based occupation that is very meaningful, has immense impact, and gives them great pleasure.

“Given the way technology is evolving, the most valuable ability in just a few years will be that of complex problem-solving, and the best way to build that ability is to build a strong and holistic math foundation. Schools, by design, cater to only a limited subset of math. Although many of them do a good job at it, our children need much more. Cuemath takes math excellence to a wholly different level. Through its multi-format tech-enabled learning system, Cuemath ensures that children not only master math, but also fall in love with it,” says Manan Khurma, Cuemath’s founder and CEO.

“The most exciting aspect of the Cuemath programme is how the unique technology and learning system inspires a love for mathematics in children at a very young age. Manan and the team have spent years perfecting a new way of teaching math to young children and delivering it through a unique partner model, and this round of funding gives them the ability to expand the business dramatically,” adds Abheek Anand, Principal, Sequoia Capital India Advisors.

Headquartered in Bengaluru, Cuemath also has a strong presence in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Pune and Hyderabad, with over 300 math excellence centres in each of these cities. They had earlier raised $4.1 million in their Series A round of funding from Sequoia India in February 2015, and a seed round in 2014 from Unitus Seed Fund and Alok Mittal, a well known early-stage investor.