Dell Foundation in $13.5m round for Indian edtech start-up
Indian education technology start-up IMAX Program has received a $13.5 million funding round from a group of venture investors including the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation (MSDF).
LGT Impact, an emerging markets-focused unit of LGT Capital Partners, and India's Aspada also participated. The capital will be used to advance product development, geographic expansion, and partnerships with international educational material publishers.
"Education in India is waiting for its data revolution. We need models that leverage technology for applying data and analytics to improve learning outcomes for every student,” Prachi Windlass, director of India programs at MSDF, said in a statement. “IMAX Program's full-stack learning system has demonstrated that it can achieve scale and be adopted successfully in schools with monthly school fees as low as $10 per student.”
Founded in 2009, IMAX Program supplies schools with internet-connected learning materials including tablets and lesson plans, as well as data that helps education professionals identify and address student learning difficulties through individualized remedial worksheets. The company claims to have delivered more than 1.7 million such worksheets to date and aims to have its products used by two million students by 2020.
India’s education space is said to benefit from the expansion of the country’s middle class demographic, cultural support around social mobility, and insolation from cyclic economic shocks. Edtech is considered a significant entry point due to smart phone proliferation and a relative lack of regulatory hurdles. According to Google and KPMG, the size of the domestic edtech market is expected to grow almost eight-fold over the next five years to about $2 billion.
Recent investment in this space includes an $11.5 million round for free-to-use learning platform operator Unacademy and a $30 million commitment to online teaching service Byju’s. MSDF identified education as one of its primary target areas when it launched a $50 million early-stage investment program for India in 2016. MSDF previously operated in the country via its India Educational Investment Fund.
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