Exclusive: FrontRow raises $14 Mn Series A round led by Eight Roads Ventures

Celebrity-focused online learning and community platform FrontRow has raised $14 million or Rs 104 crore in a Series A round. This is the maiden financing round for the Bengaluru-based venture this year.

FrontRow has passed a special resolution to allot 2 equity shares and 34,377 Series A preference shares at an issue price of Rs 30,136 per share to raise Rs 103.6 crore. Eight Roads Ventures led the round with Rs 37 crore whereas Lightspeed and Elevation Capital have put in Rs 18.5 crore each, FrontRow’s regulatory filings show.

FBC ventures and Ka Enterprises have invested Rs 2.96 and Rs 1.2 crore respectively. 

US-based Earl Grey Capital has invested  Rs 1.1 crore while FBC ventures participated with Rs 2.96 crore. Apart from institutional backers, it also raised capital from over a dozen top tier angles including Ashneer Grover,  Karan Singh, Kunal Shah, Nitin Gupta, David Booth, Maninder Gulati, Ashish Gupta, and Eric Feldman.

Entrackr had exclusively reported about FronRow’s Series A round in June.

Similar to MasterClass, FrontRow provides skill-based paid courses with the help of celebrity instructors. It offers 10 courses in genres such as cricket, music and comedy. Users can pay and access after paying a one-time fee per course that ranges from Rs 500 to Rs 1,000. According to Sensor Tower data, its Android app has been downloaded over 1.1 million times since its inception early last year.

FrontRow had raised $3.2 million in its seed funding round from Lightspeed, Elevation Capital and Deepika Padukone’s family office. Entrackr had exclusively reported about its seed round in May last year. FrontRow competes with the likes of Unlu which raised $1.2 million from Nexus Venture Partners. Its other competition includes Mento, Celebrity School and others. Unlu is in talks to raise up to $8 million in its Series A round.