[Funding alert] Local language learning startup Entri raises additional $1.7M

Kochi-based Entri, a local-language learning app for jobs, has raised $1.7 million in addition to the $1.4 million it raised in February from a set of investors led by Good Capital, closing its Pre-Series A round at a total of $3.1 million. 

The startup said it will be using the newly-raised fund to capitalise on the opportunity ahead and ramp up marketing, and to produce more content in the coming months. According to Founder and CEO, Mohammed Hisamuddin, Entri is targeting a market with more than 400 million people in India who are looking to upskill in their mother tongue to get a better paying job. 

The round also saw participation from several angel investors from Silicon Valley and India including HyperTrack Founder Kashyap Deorah and Hari TN, Head of HR at BigBasket.

“Only five percent of all the people in the world have English as their first language, the rest have their own mother tongue like Malayalam, Tamil, Hindi, Arabic, etc”, said Mohammed Hisamuddin. 

“But they have to depend on English content on the internet to learn skills that matter to them. What we have experienced at Entri is that when we provide quality content in their mother tongue they understand and grasp it far better than English for obvious reasons. This is the problem Entri is solving, and the platform has so far seen users consume more than one crore minutes of video lessons and 27 crore questions practiced in local languages,” he added.

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[Funding alert] Local language learning app Entri raises $1.4M led by Good Capital

Entri claims that it has seen a 100 percent spike in new users added and 150 percent growth in revenue since the lockdown. 

“Our revenues have grown 30 percent month-on-month for the last four months to reach an ARR of $2 million. We now have a playbook that we are able to replicate across India and with the kind of growth we are seeing, we are on track to hit an ARR of $5 million in the next three months,” shared Mohammed.

Founded in 2017, Entri provides different types of learning content (mock/adaptive tests, flashcards, video lessons) in local languages for job aspirants, and prepares them to get a government or private job. 

The app started from Kerala with Malayalam content and has since been launched in Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, and Hindi languages. Presently there are more than 150 courses including for government jobs and upskilling courses like spoken English and accounting in five different local languages. 

The startup said that three million users have used Entri so far (out of which 90,000 are paid users) and the platform is now adding 10,000 users every day. Entri is on track to reach five million users in 2020 and is targeting 10 million users in the next 18 months.

Arjun Malhotra, Partner at Good Capital, an early-stage venture investment firm with a number of other investments in companies facing ‘Bharat’ users, including Meeshoand Simsim, stated,

“Entri’s attractive economics and rapid growth are testament to the depth of the untapped opportunity in local language learning. Starting with the 100 million people who apply for government jobs every year, Entri is expanding the universe of employable candidates by skilling people in their own language – as it should be.”