These 2 Peer-selected Start-ups Shared $150K Investment To Boost Low-cost Education

Global education leader Pearson’s inaugural edupreneur programme, jointly launched by Pearson Affordable Learning Fund (PALF) and US-based investor Village Capital, came to a close with Experifun and Sudiksha Knowledge Solutions walking off with a seed funding of $75,000 each. The investments will enable the start-ups to further develop their low-cost education ventures and assist underprivileged school children.

Set up by a small group of IIT and IIM alumni and teachers, Bangalore-based Experifun (www.experifun.com) is a science curriculum and toolkit provider that is price-point accessible to schools serving the poor. To date, the start-up has sold to 40 schools in a pilot and is looking to scale. Its flagship offering is Caboodle – an all-in-one box complete with various kits that cover all science topics for a grade. Only one box is required per classroom to make science learning and classroom experiments fun, easy and interactive. The start-up currently caters to Standard III-VIII and its products are suitable for both urban and rural schools.

Founded by a group of social entrepreneurs, Hyderabad-based Sudiksha (http://www.sudiksha.in/) operates pre-schools that offer quality education to kids from bottom-of-the-pyramid families. It currently owns and manages 18 schools – 12 in Hyderabad and six in rural Andhra Pradesh. All 12 institutions in Hyderabad are run by women entrepreneurs under an incentivised profit-sharing scheme.

As we reported earlier, the winners of this accelerator programme were selected by their peers – 14 education-focused start-ups who made the final cut. After a rigorous initial screening, the finalists were chosen out of 125 applicants from all over India. All 14 fledgling firms spent around three months with Pearson and Village Capital, attending a series of workshops and peer review sessions across the country. The intense schedule was to make them investment-ready and more market-savvy.

Other start-ups that participated in the programme are 40K Plus Education, Callystro Infotech, EdWell Solutions, Effect International, Magic Pathshala, MangoSense, Sage Services, Scholowiz Educational Solutions, SEED Edu Corp, RMinds Education, TeachersLikeMe and Teer Designs.

Announcing the winners, Katelyn Donnelly, executive director of PALF, said, “These inspiring entrepreneurs are excellent examples of the innovations desperately needed to improve access to, and quality of, education for low-income learners around the world. Both Experifun and Sudiksha have established strong traction with customers and shown early promise to transform learning outcomes and scale quickly.”

“We’re incredibly proud of the hard-working teams in the 2013 India cohort,” said Ross Baird, executive director of Village Capital. “We’ve been excited to bring together the future leaders of the affordable education sector in India. We’re thrilled to welcome Experifun and Sudiksha to our portfolio, and to welcome the entire cohort into our alumni network of over 350 impact-oriented enterprises worldwide.”

PALF makes minority equity investments in for-profit companies operating in the affordable education services in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The fund was launched in July 2012 with $15 million of initial capital from Pearson. The fund aims to improve access to quality education for the poorest families in the world.

Village Capital has served over 350 ventures worldwide, building disruptive innovations in energy, environmental sustainability, agriculture, health and education. Till now, it has launched 22 programmes in seven countries and made 30 peer-selected investments. Participant enterprises have raised more than $40 million in follow-on funding.

Image: Pearson