Higher education services provider iNurture raises Rs 28 Cr from Ventureast, others

Bengaluru-based higher education services provider iNurture Education has raised Rs 28 crore in a Series C round led by Ventureast. Existing investors Bertelsmann India Investments and Ascent Capital also participated in the round.

The startup will primarily use the fresh proceeds to expand its e-learning platform for skill centres and distance learning, and to expand its managed campuses business, reports ET.

Launched in 2004 by Ashwin Ajila, iNurture partners with universities across India to provide job-oriented undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.

Also Read: Govt to launch 300 online courses designed by IITs in Hindi, 10 other languages

iNurture supports universities and autonomous institutions by offering new-age undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. It also runs iNurturePro certification programme for outside students and has partnered with 30 universities across the country and has a student base of 6,000.

Nine months ago, the startup had raised Rs 10 crore (around $1.5 million) in venture debt from a Mumbai-based non-banking financial company (NBFC) BlackSoil Capital. Besides, Bertelsmann, GVFL and Ascent Capital are also the existing investors in the company.

In the past few month, edtech industry has witnessed a flow of funds. Last week, Edtech firm AEON Learning backed by Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan had raised $3.2 million from MEMG Family Office. Another edtech startup CollPoll raised an undisclosed amount of funding in a pre-Series A round led by Manipal Global Education Services (MaGE).

In December, last year Springboard raised $9.5 Mn in its Series A round. Prior to that, online learning platform Meritnation raised Rs 38 crore from Info Edge in November. The company also invested Rs 5.66 crore in Delhi-based edtech startup NoPaperForms.

According to a joint report by Google and consultancy firm KPMG, India’s online education industry is expected to grow almost eight times to hit $1.96 billion by 2021, with the number of paid users rising six-fold from 1.6 million now to 9.6 million.

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