Lightbox leads $7.2 Mn funding round in edtech startup Flinto

Flinto, which focuses on activity-based learning for kids, has secured $7.2 million in a pre-Series B round led by its existing backer Lightbox Ventures.

The latest financing round for Flinto has materialized after almost two-and-half years. The Chennai-based company had picked up $7 million Series A funds from Lightbox and Ashwin Chadha, among others, in December 2017. 

With the latest proceeds, Flinto is looking to support its growth in the early learning space and expand its newly-launched preschool solution during the Covid-19 pandemic, said the company in a statement. 

Founded in 2013 by Arunprasad Durairaj, Shreenidhi Srirangam, and Vijay Gandhi, Flinto is an activity box for children of age 2 to 12 years delivered at the doorstep to subscribers every month. Each box offers play-based activities such as painting, drawing and games, which is designed to promote early child development with fun.

It also comprises a curriculum for preschoolers, daily lesson plans, online teacher training facilities, classroom posters, and an app for parents. The platform claims to have served 10.49 lakh parents and over 700 pre-schools in the last 1.5 years across eight countries. 

To date, the company has raised nearly $15 million across mixed rounds of debt and equity. While the Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted operations of a large number of businesses, edtech has been witnessing extraordinary growth due to the shutdown of offline classes. 

The spurt in growth has also triggered the interest of existing and new investors to double down their bets in the segment. Byju’s has raised three rounds of funding in 2020 and was valued at $10.5 billion in its recent financing from BOND Capital. Unacademy also scooped up $110 million in February while Vedantu has picked up $37 million across two tranches this year.

Tencent and Sequoia-backed Byju’s is in an advanced stage to acquire Doubtnut in a deal worth over $100 million. If the deal goes through, it will give Byju’s a fillip in the supplementary education segment. Entrackr had exclusively reported the talks last month.