Zerodha’s Rainmatter invests in online learning startup QShala

Online learning platform for children QShala has raised ₹2.7 crore in angel funding, led by Zerodha-backed start-up incubator and fund Rainmatter Capital.

The funding round also saw participation from other notable angels including Mindtree co-founder Kalyan Banerjee; CTO of Qwikcilver Solutions, Sanjay Tambwekar; Partner, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, Avinash Umapathy, among other notable angels.

The six-year old startup works with children across all ages and helps them acquire a mindset of lifelong learning, through the process of quizzing, while allowing them to build a clearer, deeper understanding of the world around them.

QShala, which is owned by Walnut Knowledge Solutions Pvt. Ltd., also conducts the QShala Family Quiz, which has seen over 8500 families participate till date.

"We believe QShala's curriculum, learning experience, and platform addresses the need for developing skills and aptitudes in young minds, it also nurtures and nourishes their imagination and curiosity while focusing on content that goes way beyond the school textbook curriculum,” said Raghav Chakravarthy, co-founder, QShala.

“It is important for children to develop critical and lateral thinking from a young age much beyond their classroom framework in today’s world. We are rapidly moving towards subjective learning where they would need to build a skill set actually required for employability in the future. We have always been big believers in the philosophy of constant upskilling and retraining,” said Nithin Kamath, founder and CEO, Zerodha.

Zerodha’s Rainmatter Capital has been ramping up its investments in early stage startups. Until November last year, the fund had made investments in more than 14 startups operating in the financial technology space. Some of its notable investments include - stock investment platform, Smallcase; future and options trading platform, Sensibull, amongst others.

This year alone, Rainmatter has already invested in ed-tech venture Terra.do; aggregator for bonds and debentures, GoldenPi; employee focussed social network, Mesh; fitness-focused live-streaming platform, ImStrong amongst others.

In July, this year, the Union Cabinet approved the new National Education Policy (NEP), which suggested a slew of changes to the education environment in India.

“We do meet the similar needs identified and called out in the just released National Education Policy, 2020. QShala is designed to address the latent curiosity quotient of every child and we are very privileged to have a very talented and an eclectic bunch of team members, who do deep research work using to create content for the QShala programs which includes quizzes, focused sessions and interactive programs pertaining to picking up life skills,” said Chakravarthy.

QShala’s programs start with children from class 1 onwards as the company looks to cater to children across the country and globally.