Helion Partners, an early stage investment firm, has announced an investment of US$ 3.5 million in Vienova Education. Vienova Education is a startup based out of Delhi, providing affordable education via schools in North India. The fresh supply of funds follows the first round of funding by Indian Angel Network (IAN) and others in 2008.
What is Vienova?
Vienova uses technology to develop solutions to affordable eduction in India. It aims to address the vast divide between the private and public sector schools, and make quality education available to all strata. It is headed and founded by Parikshit Jain, an IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad alumnus who envisions Vienova’s aim to expand its network to more than 100 schools with teacher and student subscribing to the same curriculum and ethos. The fresh flow of investment will enable the company to move forward towards this very aim.
Sanjeev Aggarwal, Senior Managing Director of Helion Advisors has now joined the board of Vienova, following the investment. He will be joining current members, Saurabh Srivastava, Co-Founder IAN and Rohit Chand, founder of IIS-Infotech and Axis-IT&T.
Helion is a muti-stage, India focused venture fund with a total kitty of US$ 350 million, with investments in diverse spaces like outsourcing, internet, retail services. Along with IAN, which is geared towards providing resources and mentoriship to early stage business, Helio’s investment in Viena will definitely help to fuel its growth.
Mr. Parikshit explains how Viena aims to expand and maintain its growth:
By relying on innovative teaching practices and technologies, leading to huge customer traction, we aspire to quadruple our current content to over 20,000 hours by 2014. By cashing in on the strong customer demand from private sector schools, we shall continue our rapid growth and hope to achieve revenues of US$ 15 million by 2014.
Mr Sanjeev Aggarwal of Helion said on the current scenario of Indian education:
Education offers interesting opportunities, particularly in the mass market segment, for investors with a 5-10 year horizon. What’s more, through Vienova, we are very excited about providing quality education alternatives to the next generation, the social impact it can have and the huge scale that businesses in the sector can achieve.
Our Take
This deal again showcases that the the education sector in India is poised to grow, as there is a great demand for quality education and educational services at affordable prices for the masses. With over 100 million children in the country, it is turning out to be a lucrative option for many businesses.
While establishing schools and devising profits out of them might not be an ethical option, the educational services field is sure ripe with opportunities galore. Vienova seeks to meet challenges in this segment with a combination of low cost technology, teacher training and tailored education content.
No comments:
Post a Comment