Closing its second round of funding in less than a year, edutech startup Masai School on Thursday raised USD 5 million or Rs 36.2 crore in series-A round from a clutch investors led by Omidyar Network India and others.
The Bengaluru-based career-focused skill building school said other investors who joined in are the existing investors — Unitus Ventures, India Quotient and AngelList India.
This new round of funding comes less than a year after Masai School raised its pre-series-A round in August 2020, led by Unitus Ventures, the career-focused alternative education startup said.
The fund will be used to introduce new learning tracks, thereby moving closer to a full-fledged higher education alternative, it said.
Masai began operations in June 2019 and leverages the income share agreement model to create an outcome-oriented learning approach.
Co-founder and chief executive Prateek Shukla said with the latest funding the startup will launch new programmes in user interface and user experience designing, product management and data analytics in addition to strengthening the existing offerings of full stack web and android development.
Masai”s vision is to help youth launch their careers in a field of their choice irrespective of what background they come from, he said, and pointed out that this is more so because of the millions who graduate annually, only a small percentage are actually employable leaving the industry struggling to find relevant entry-level talent, implying that the root of the problem lies in the existing education system.
Shukla further said this funding will primarily be used to expand the curriculum and contribute to the transitioning of their business model from being a coding centric to a career focused institute.
Masai’s curriculum expansion will help open up more doors for learners and their ISA model reduces the burden on youth and focuses on helping them really launch their career unhindered, said Siddharth Nautiyal, a partner at Omidyar.
Masai school not only trains students but even offers a allowance programme under which top performing students are given Rs 15,000 per month for the duration of the programme.
Till date, Masai has graduated over 200 students across eight batches, with a placement rate of 91 per cent at an average CTC of Rs 6.75 lakh, and it is on hopeful graduating 2000 students next academic year.
Its hiring partners include Samsung, Sharechat, Instamojo, Lendingkart, Nobroker and Paytm among others. PTI
