Early learning startup Kutuki raises ₹16 crore in seed round

Kutuki, an early learning platform, on Wednesday said it had raised ₹16 crore ($2.2 million approximately) in a seed round led by Omidyar Network India. AET and existing angel investors Better Capital, First Cheque and angel investor Abhishek Nag also participated in the round.

The Bengaluru-based startup says it will use the capital to expand its content library to cover all major Indian languages. The company also aims to focus on children in tier-2 and beyond cities. The learning platform currently offers content in four Indian languages, Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, and Marathi. It also offers content in English.

Bharath Bevinahally and Sneha Sundaram founded Kutuki in 2019. The platform offers interactive content for younger children. Kutuki’s claim to fame was when it bagged the second position in the Atmanirbhar Bharat App Innovate Challenge in the e-learning category. The app also got a mention from Prime Minister Narendra Modi in one of the editions of “Mann Ki Baat” last year.

"From our early days, it was clear to us that one of the foundational issues with early learning in India was the lack of context, structure and localisation in the content and products available to Indian children. With our popular characters Kutu, Ki and Minku, we are seeing a strong connect - kids identify with them because the characters look, talk, act like them and are essentially representing Indian values and ethos. Everything we do at Kutuki has a learning outcome attached to it and that has helped us build trust with parents quickly" Sundaram said in a release.

While Kutuki aims at the early learning space, many Indian startups focused on different e-education categories have grown in the last couple of years. The surge in traction is also because of the increasing focus on digital learning due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Already, ed-tech startups Byju’s and Unacademy have acquired the unicorn status.

According to industry reports, the ed-tech sector will continue to grow in the coming years. A June Redseer report says that online education offerings (for grades 1-12) will grow 6.3 times to create a $1.7 billion market by 2022-end. The post-K12 market will grow 3.7 times to form a $1.8 billion market.