Tencent leads $15 mn Series A funding in education platform Doubtnut

Bengaluru: Edtech startup Doubtnut has raised $15 million in a Series A funding round led by Chinese investor Tencent. Existing investors Omidyar Network India, AET, Japan and Cure.Fit co-founder Ankit Nagori, along with Sequoia Capital India participated in this round, the company said on Friday.

Doubtnut had raised its Pre-Series A in March last year, in a round led by Surge, Sequoia Capital India’s scale-up program, Waterbridge Ventures, Omidyar Network India and AET, Japan.

The company will use the funds to widen its pan-India distribution, build on its content repository, invest in strengthening its technology stack and scaling its team, the statement added.

IIT-Delhi alumni Tanushree Nagori and Aditya Shankar launched Doubtnut in October, 2017. Catering to K12, IIT JEE and NEET students at present, Doubtnut is a multi-lingual online learning platform that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies for image recognition, natural language processing and proprietary machine learning algorithms to provide video-based solutions in response to students’ queries. The platform has over 13 million monthly active users across web, app, Youtube and WhatsApp.

Doubtnut co-founder Nagori said in a statement, “Doubtnut is truly democratizing education across India with its student focused approach. Our user base reflects the entire demography of India, something which no other education app in the country has come close to achieving. 85% of our users are from outside the top 10 metro cities in India, strengthening our belief that we are really solving for Bharat. 60% of these users have come online in the last 12 months. This gives us an indication that despite a massive growth is our user base, there is still a significant target audience that is yet to be tapped.”

"Building on its core functionality of doubt resolution, the company has today built a large and engaged student community. Through its structured content offering across multiple subjects, Doubtnut is now becoming a one-stop solution for its students. With 85% of students from beyond Top 10 cities and a majority of those from the Next Half Billion population, Doubtnut is bridging key gaps in education," said Badri Pillapakkam, investment partner, Omidyar Network India.

"We are excited to continue our association with Doubtnut as they are transforming access to learning and individual doubt resolution for students pan-India across vernacular languages,” said Yuki Kawamura, Partner at AET Fund.