Mumbai-based Shirsa Labs Pvt Ltd, which runs and operates education technology startup Shirsa Labs, has raised $250K (around Rs 1.64 crore) in angel funding from ah! Ventures. The deal was concluded through ah! Ventures’ private equity investment platform, CLUB ah!. The funds will be utilised to strengthen its team, a company statement said. A startup-focused growth catalyst ah! Ventures is a network of close to 500 investors. The network recently secured its first profitable exit from Harness Handitouch within two years of its investment. Till date, it has invested close to Rs 60 crore in over 20 startups spread across varied industries and domains, including Shirsa Labs. Shirsa Labs was founded in 2013 by Sukhada Tendulkar and Mandar Desai. It uses online engagement platform “Planet of GUI” to entertain and educate 6-13-year-old children. The market that Shirsa is targeting is phenomenally large, said Harshad Lahoti, founder and CEO of ah! Ventures. India has over 100 million students enrolled in K1- K8 which is almost 20 to 200 times that of US and UK respectively. “Besides, evidence of increasing enrolment in private schools in rural India – from 18 per cent in 2006 to 25 per cent in 2011 to over 30 per cent today – is proof enough that even rural India is exploring newer and innovative avenues of teaching and learning,” he said. The startup aims to stimulate the intellectual and learning skills of children by using a healthy combination of online and offline interactive methods. It has multiple games, worksheets, videos, DIYs (do it yourself) which engage kids and boost their cognitive learning. “In the larger context of children’s growth and development, we felt that there is a huge open space where significant value can be created for children, parents and educators,” said Tendulkar, co-founder and CEO, Shirsa Labs. “Kids love to play online, parents want actionable information and educators can teach better when children are motivated. We have connected these points and want Shirsa Labs to be a collaborator in this eco-system.” Shirsa has developed a multipronged approach to attract children using a personalised story-line, engage parents with quantified reporting and involve educational institutions with goal based co-curriculum lab solutions. Delhi-based education technology company Medhavi Professionals Services Pvt Ltd, which owns and operates online portal iDreamCareer.com (iDC), had raised an undisclosed sum in its second round of angel funding through ah! Ventures, with participation of Indian Designs Group and other investors. Eywa Media Innovations Pvt Ltd, a data analytics startup that provides digital signal processing solutions for broadcasters, has raised $1 million in seed funding from ah! Ventures, PE fund Viktor Koenig and Mantra Ventures.
