Edtech Platform Vidyakul Raises $500,000 In Bridge Round Led By We Founder Circle The company plans to utilize funds to expand the team and enhance the platform's functionality

Gurugram-based vernacular after-school e-learning platform Vidyakul on Monday announced that it has raised a bridge round worth $500,000 lead by startup investment platform We Founder Circle (WFC) and witnessed participation from other investors including JITO Angel Network and Thinkuvate.

The brand plans to utilize funds to expand the team and enhance the platform's functionality.

"We have been getting overwhelming responses from students from across the states. With the growing Internet penetration, the scope of digital learning has widened, and we are exploring the possibilities of the same. E-learning has the capability to address long-standing challenges of – access to quality education, reaching remotest of the areas, student-teacher ratio, etc. We, on top of that, have made it easier for students by helping them understand concepts in their own language. So far, we are providing courses for ten boards, and we plan to add more three languages and add courses for three state boards by end of this fiscal," said Tarun Saini, founder, Vidyakul.

The startup is aimed at providing after-school e-learning for state board students in vernacular languages. The platform understands that education is best delivered when in one's own language, the company shared.

"Edtech industry has grown multifold in the last one year itself. In India, the industry holds a lot of scopes, and Vidyakul's model is aptly designed to cater to the requirements of the population that actually form the majority. The unique approach to deliver quality education in vernacular languages makes it a go-to platform for students from every region in India. In 2017 the number of regional language internet users surpassed English-speaking users and this number will only grow further, and vernacular-based models will gain more relevance," affirmed Neeraj Tyagi, co-founder, and chief executive officer, WFC.

The edtech startup is currently delivering education in four languages and has already enabled the same for ten lakh students from ten states.

"We have started helping Vidyakul since 2019, and have invested $100,000 in Jan 2021 as we were very bullish on vernacular eLearning consumer growth. Since he launched the Gujarati language after starting with Hindi, a lot of our investors and local business community were keen to actively work with them. That is how with overwhelming demand from the Gujarati community we are able to reinvest $250,000 in this round again. This speaks a volume about the potential of Vidyakul and the strategic investor base of WFC community," stated Gaurav Singhvi, co-founder, WFC.

"Rural education in India has been the prime focus of the government. Vidyakul, majorly focuses on the BHARAT with a huge content bank of over 100,000 video lectures covering more than 10 state boards across Maths and Science. We at JITO Angel Network are proud to be part of Vidyakul and are very confident that the founders will lead the company to great heights," commented Sunil Kumar SInghvi, vice chairman, JITO Angel Network.

The company has attracted the marquee investors from the Gujarat state that applaud the success of the brand wherein, despite the pandemic it served more than two lakh students from the Gujarat region alone, through its platform, the platform said.

"We like Vidyakul because it is a fast-growing BHARAT-focussed multi-lingual e-learning platform which is enabling teachers to create online courses for students to access quality education at affordable prices in tier-II/III cities in India," added Ghanshyam Ahuja, managing partner, ThinKuvate.

The brand has raised $500,000 in Seed round earlier this year.