myCBSEguide raises angel funding from MakeMyTrip’s Rajesh Magow

Delhi-based edtech startup myCBSEguide has raised an undisclosed amount in an angel funding round led by Rajesh Magow, CEO of MakeMyTrip.

The platform aims to use the funds for new hiring and enhancing marketing spend and product technology. It aims to increase its employee strength from 18 to 40 in the next four months.

Besides marketing expenditure, the startup also plans to make use of the funds for content building. Basant Pandey, CEO and Co-founder, myCBSEguide, says,

“We observed that the language barrier causes a lot of difficulty for students in the CBSE board. So, we have decided to create the CBSE content in Hindi and digitise it on our platform.”

Basant explains that of over 18,000 CBSE-affiliated schools, more than half are government-run. And a large number of government schools follow Hindi as a teaching medium. However, at the higher secondary level, students have to resort to studying humanities in English as a lot of the subjects aren’t available in Hindi.

In the K-12 category, the platform plans to introduce study material in subjects such as psychology, philosophy, economics, and physical education, among others, in Hindi.

“So far, the platform has been targeting students who are in the K-12 category, and provides study materials and test papers for entrance exams conducted by CBSE such as CTET, JEE and NEET-UG. But we are looking forward to foraying into the competitive exam preparation market as well,” says Basant.

A booming market

A report released by RedSeer Consulting in 2016 stated that the market size of the online supplemental education opportunity in India was expected to touch $2.5 billion by the yearend, and was poised to grow at 15 percent over the next three years.

According to the report, the addressable demographic of online supplemental education in the country was 20 million students in classes VI-XII. These are the students who would be willing to go online to access supplemental education.

In this market, a large number of players are catering to the considerable demand for online education in both K-12 and test preparation categories. Byju’s, Topper Learning, Simplilearn, and Prepathon are some of the dominant names in the edtech category. These players have also raised large sums in funding over the past few years.

According to Docebo, the inflow of venture capital in the e-learning space has been $6 billion globally in the past five years.

In 2016, investor interest in the edtech segment saw an uptick. Last year, around 58 education startups collectively raised investments of over $210 million. The top five among them were Byju’s ($125 million), EduPristine ($10 million), Avanti Learning ($5 million), CueMath ($40 million), and Simplilearn ($30 million).

According to experts, the edtech segment is evolving, and will be the driving force in bringing about a change in India's education system.

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