Bengaluru-based venture capital fund, CBA Capital, announced that it will invest Rs 100 crore in 15 ed-tech companies. In lieu of this, its early stage education and skilling impact fund, named Education Catalyst Fund (ECF) will be aiming at investing in start-ups in the pre-series, series A and series B equity rounds.
ECF is a fund worth Rs 100 crore and is registered under SEBI in the Alternative Investment Fund Category 2 jurisdiction. The fund has prominent backers including Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and Gray Matters Capital. It is the first multi-investor fund that is exclusively focusing on the affordable education and livelihood opportunities in the country.
“Only a fraction of all venture capital funding is going to the education sector but the long term impact of an investment in this sector can make it exponential,” said Vishal Bharat, Managing Partner at ECF, in a statement.
ECF aims to support 15 entrepreneurs engaged in providing solutions for the education and skill enhancement of individuals and professionals particularly in the low income segment. ECF announced a total investment of Rs. 15 crore in three companies – Simulanis, Kopykitab, and Buddy4Study – as a part of its first round of investments. As per CBA Capital, all the three selected companies are in their early stages and are employing technology to disrupt the traditional business models.
ECF has been structured as an 8 year close-ended fund focused on supporting companies in their early stages particularly through seed funding and series A investments. The 15 companies the ECF aims to support in this 8 year time period are expected to help over one million lower income households during the course of their lifetime.
Over the past three years, ECF has established a deeper understanding of the ed-tech space by working with young companies in the segment via the “India Education Investment Fund”, which is a proprietary fund set up by the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation. The IEIF is dedicated to providing early stage, affordable yet high quality education and skill enhancement solutions to the lower income households in urban areas. The fund has made seed investments in 6 startups so far – Oliveboard, ChipperSage, GuruG, Report Bee, School Mitra, and Select Jobs-all of which have successfully scaled up their businesses.
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