Exclusive: Bhanzu raises $15 Mn Series A led by Eight Roads

Math-focused edtech platform Bhanzu has raised Rs 119.8 crore led by Eight Roads Ventures. B Capital also joined the Series A round along with existing investor Lightspeed. This would be the second investment round for the Hyderabad-based company in the past seven months.

The board at Bhanzu has passed a special resolution to issue 1 equity share and 25,634 Series A compulsory convertible preference shares (CCPS) at an issue price of Rs 46,717 each to raise Rs 119.8 crore or $15 million.

Eight Roads Ventures has spearheaded the round with Rs 87.82 crore or $11 million. B Capital and existing investor Lightspeed invested $2 million each.

Bhanzu also expanded its ESOP pool by 3,042 options to 20,952 options. As per Fintrackr’s estimates the fresh options worth Rs 14.2 crore, whereas the total value of the company’s ESOP pool amounts to Rs 98 crore.

Entrackr had exclusively reported about this deal on May 30.

Bhanzu provides experiential math learning courses which enables cognitive abilities among children aged between 5 to 16 years. According to its website, it has trained over 30,000 students through its bouquet of courses.

Neelakanta Bhanu Prakash, the founder of Bhanzu, holds four world records and 50 Limca records for being the fastest human calculator in the world.

As per Fintrackr’s estimates, the company has been valued at around Rs 836 crore or $105 million (post allotment). Importantly, Bhanzu’s valuation shot up over 10X as it was valued at around $10 million in its seed round.

After this round, its founder Prakash holds 38.62% stake followed by Lightspeed and Eight Roads with 18.59% and 10.5% stake respectively. J. Srinivas, Alluru Uday Kiran, Devulapalli Lakshmi Prachotan, and J Sai Srinivas Krishnakanth own 3.75% shares each. The complete shareholding structure of the company can be seen below:

As of now, Bhanzu has raised $17 million including a $2 million in its maiden funding round from Lightspeed and a host of angel investors such as Nitin Gupta, Gaurav Munjal,  Kunal Shah, Maninder Gulati and Biswa Kalyan Rath.

While Bhanzu is yet to disclose its FY22 numbers, it was a pre-revenue stage company in the fiscal year ending March 2021. According to its annual financial statement with the RoC, the company posted operating revenue of Rs 5.5 lakh and churned Rs 1.1 lakh in profit.

Edtech companies were having a ball in 2021 as most of the venture-backed companies raised back-to-back rounds but the segment got a reality check this year. Funding in the edtech segment nosedived from $5.82 billion in 2021 to $2 billion in 2022 till August 15, according to our data tracking platform Fintrackr.