[Funding alert] Mohandas Pai's Aarin Capital Partners leads Pre-Series A round in 88academics India

New Delhi-based 88academics, an online education provider, has secured equity financing of about $3 million in a Pre-Series A round led by Aarin Capital Partners. 

88academics (India), an 88tuition (Singapore) group company, will use the funds to develop India specific content for the K-12 segment. 88tuition (Singapore) is an enterprise with a mission to “empower every student to achieve full potential” and is expanding rapidly in Asia. 

Anil Ahuja, Founder and CEO of 88tuition, said,

“Our objective is to democratise education and make the highest quality product available to everyone at an affordable price. We are committed to building a top-quality enterprise and creating value for all stakeholders. We are grateful to all edtech companies who have pioneered the transformation in India.”

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The financing round was led by Aarin Capital Partners, a proprietary venture fund founded by Mohandas Pai and Ranjan Pai. Its investments and exits include BYJU'S, Pharmeasy, HomeLane, Faircent, etc. Prime Securities Limited was the exclusive Investment Banker to this transaction.

Commenting on the deal, T V Mohandas Pai, Partner at Aarin Capital Partners said,

"We seek to partner technology-intensive businesses in life-sciences & healthcare, education and other potentially large India-centric or India-first companies. 88academics provides us with an opportunity to invest in a sector we know well and back a highly experienced management team with a differentiated product and a disruptive business model.”

A group of highly successful professionals, including Piyush Gupta (CEO, DBS Group), Vinod Gupta (MD, VG Learning Destination and Rashtriya Gaurav Awardee), P S Jayakumar (ex-MD and CEO, Bank of Baroda), Ramesh Swaminathan (Group CFO, Lupin), Ajay Abrol (ex-Head Proprietary Trading, Nomura Singapore), Prem Rajani (Managing Partner, Rajani Associates), Akshay Gupta, and N Jayakumar (Management Team, Prime Securities) also participated in the round.

Ganesh Agarwal, MD, Prime Securities, added, “The Indian edtech industry is valued at over $30 billion and the incumbents have significantly transformed the way education is being imparted to students. The market is ripe for a revolutionary and disruptive product that is affordable, customer-centric, scalable, and profitable. We are proud to have brought 88tuition, Aarin Capital Partners, and our growing list of HNI investors together”.

Edtech company 88tuition is focused on delivering superior learning outcomes using a proprietary pedagogy and technology platform. It claims to have captured over 6 percent and 2 percent (registered users and paid customers respectively) of the Singapore market.