Tencent leads $15 Mn Series A round in Doubtnut

Multilingual instant doubt clearing app Doubtnut has secured $15 million in a Series A funding round led by Tencent. Existing investors, Omidyar Network India, Japan-based AET Sequoia Capital India and Ankit Nagori participated in the round.

Post the infusion of fresh capital, the Gurugram-based company is looking to expand its pan-India operations along with bolstering its technology stack and scaling its team, news agency PTI reported quoting a company statement.

A Registrar of Companies (RoC) filing with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) shows the company has allotted 2506 Series A Compulsorily Convertible Preference Shares (CCPS) at Rs 1.41 lakh per share to the investors.

While Tencent led the round by investing Rs 72 crore, Omidyar has invested Rs 21.25 crore.

Besides, Sequoia via Surge Ventures, SCI, and Redwood Trust have poured in around Rs 12.44 crore in the latest investment round. The mobile gaming company Akatsuki Inc also purchased 113 CCPS for Rs 1.6 crore and Ankit Nagori paid Rs 89.09 lakh for 63 CCPS.

The fresh capital for Doubtnut has been infused at an estimated valuation of around $45 million.

Selected for Sequoia Capital's accelerator program Surge, Doubtnut had raised $3.3 million in a pre-Series A round in April last year.

Incepted in 2017 by Tanushree Nagori and Aditya Shankar, Doubtnut offers free solutions to users who send snapshots of their doubts over the platform. The target audience here is the K12 segment, especially solutions for Mathematics doubts for IIT JEE examinations.

With over 13 million monthly active users across several platforms (web, app, YouTube and WhatsApp), Doubtnut claims to have cleared over 250 million doubts across subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology.

Unlike other edtech startups, Doubtnut's usages is mainly driven by students in tier II and tier III cities.

According to Doubtnut's annual financial statement for the fiscal year ending 2019, the company has generated revenue from operations amounting to Rs 5.55 lakh with net losses of Rs 15.55 lakh.

For lead investor Tencent, the last year had been full of action with investment in over half a dozen startups including PolicyBazaar, Udaan, MX Player, MyGate, Khatabook, and Niyo Solutions.