[Funding alert] Edtech startup Univ.AI raises investment from Biocon founder Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

Univ.AI, the Bengaluru-based edtech startup with a focus on teaching artificial intelligence and data science online, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Biocon Limited Executive Chairperson and Founder Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw.

The startup plans to utilise this funding to expand the scope of AI and data science education to a larger group of candidates.

Founded by 2019 by Siddharth Das, who was previously the CEO of Reliance Jio Payments, along with professors from Harvard and UCLA — Dr Rahul Dave, Dr Pavlos Protopapas, and Dr Achuta Kadambi — to provide state-of-the-art data science and AI education.

ALSO READ

This 13-year-old uses Minecraft to make learning easy and fun, and has received praise from Microsoft’s Satya Nadella

Univ.AI seeks to provide an online alternative to the top institutions. The startup’s programmes are completely digital, with a focus on hands-on mentorship by Harvard and UCLA faculty.

On the funding, Univ.AI Founder and CEO Siddharth said, “We are in an excellent position to take the best possible AI and Data Science education to even more students and professionals and open doors for them to attractive opportunities in AI and advanced Data Science, that will help shape our future.”

According to the startup, students who have graduated from their programmes have got employment in the leading technology companies and some of them have also continued higher education at leading universities.

Univ.Ai is also keenly focused on increasing the participation of women in the field of AI and machine learning, and 50 percent of their staff are women. The startup has also launched a women scholars programme which provides partial scholarships to all its women students.

“Our top performers from our previous cohorts have been women but the overall professional landscape in AI and ML has been severely skewed towards men. 50 percent of our team is female and we were inspired to launch the Women Scholars programmes, thanks to their relentless efforts of wanting to bridge the gender divide in the Machine Learning workforce,” said Siddharth.