Dell Foundation funded IEIF invests in two edu startups

Mumbai: India Educational Investment Fund (IEIF), an early stage impact investment fund focused on the educational sector, today announced its first two investments in Report Bee and Guru-G. The financial details were not disclosed.

Report Bee is a cloud based learning platform for the education sector to measure and improve learning using data analytics. Guru-G is provider of gamified platform for teachers and uses proprietary frameworks from education research and learning analytics to support teachers through an app.

"Both companies function at the intersection of education, social impact and technology. Both promoters bring a high degree of commitment and passion to the education space while leveraging technology to enhance user experiences. It is a high-growth space where we are seeing a lot of exciting new ideas from young entrepreneurs," said Vishal Bharat, Director of Corporate Business Advisors, which is the investment manager for IEIF.

Established and funded by Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, IEIF is a single member, US-based fund designed to be part of a larger effort of the foundation to support early-stage investing, incubation and mentoring support to social enterprises focused on, K-12 education services and skill training to children and youth from urban, low income families in India.

Since 2014, the foundation has committed investments to Unitus Seed Fund and Menterra Social Impact Fund (being set up by Villgro).

Amruth BR, CEO of Guru-G, said, "There has been little fundamental change in the way teaching takes place in India in the last 50 years. We aim to change that with our scalable, content-agnostic platform, which makes it fun and easy for teachers to learn new ways of teaching. We have demonstrated our relevance and impact in markets as different as rural Rajasthan and the United States. We are now mainly focused on scaling up our presence in schools as well as strengthening our product to meet B2C demand."

Guru-G, a two year old startup, works with over 350 schools and plans to use the funds to expand its business in the school market as well as in the publishers market.

Report Bee's platform is being used in 251 schools across Asia impacting more than 200,000 students and 10,000 teachers. The company is also working with global publishers and leading education boards to provide useful insights on learning impact. Report Bee will use the proceeds to accelerate product development and expand its footprint in domestic and international markets.

Anant Mani, CEO of Report Bee, said, "Report Bee's platform provides powerful insights, which will have a significant impact on learning outcomes of students and quality of school. The Report Bee team is very excited to partner with IEIF. IEIF brings with them a strong understanding of the education space which will help us in our growth journey."

InteQuant Advisors was the sole advisor on the Report Bee transaction.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.