[Funding alert] Edtech platform BlueLearn raises Rs 3.25 Cr in pre-seed round led by Lightspeed

Community led edtech platform BlueLearn on Tuesday raised Rs 3.25 crore ($450,000) in a pre-seed round led by Lightspeed with participation from 100X.VC,Titan Capital 2am VC and other angel investors such as Rahul Mathur, Gaurav Mandlecha, and Surabhi Randev. This is in addition to the first round led by 100X.VC.

The startup plans to use the raised funds to build their core team, hire new talent, and further develop their product to cater to their growing community of users.

Founded earlier this year by Harish Uthayakumar and Shreyans Sancheti who are currently in their final year of electrical engineering at BITS Pilani, BlueLearn is helping its members learn new skills, network with like-minded peers, and get exposure from top notch industry experts.

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Speaking about the fundraise, Harish Uthayakumar, Co-founder, BlueLearn said,

“We started building the BlueLearn community in August 2020. In our conversations with them, we realised there was a huge gap in the industry exposure and opportunities students in tier-2/3 colleges received. Through BlueLearn, we want to democratise access to knowledge and bring back the ‘human’ element in the age of virtual learning”. 

Harish added, “We are thankful to Lightspeed, Titan Capital, 100X.VC, 2am VC and our angel investors who have shown faith in our vision. We are confident that with their support and guidance we will be able to build a valuable and iconic product for our users”.

The startup has organically created a community of over 42,000 members with 20,000 MAUs from 14 countries across the globe including India, USA, UK, Singapore and others in the last 10 months.

With a team of 13 members spread across the country BlueLearn claims to have witnessed a growth rate of 10-15 percent m-o-m.

Commenting on the investment, Vaibhav Agrawal, Partner, Lightspeed said, 

“There is a gaping need for clutter breaking new experiences in higher education — while the world has moved to social communities, byte sized content, and hyper specific skills, our education systems are still stuck in classrooms (now zoom-rooms!), static curricula and rote learning of the 1900s industrial era.

Lightspeed is excited to work with the imaginative, creative founding team of BlueLearn that sees this gap clearly and wants to create a big dent in this space”.  

Ninad Karpe, Partner, 100X.VC added, “We at 100X.VC are elated to see our portfolio companies growing and making an impact in the industry and the entire ecosystem. Bluelearn’s concept is unconventional and that’s what interested us the most. We are confident that BlueLearn will scale rapidly in the coming future”.