FrontRow raises $3.2 million from Deepika Padukone, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Elevation Capital

FrontRow, a learning and community platform, has raised seed funding of $3.2 million led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, Elevation Capital (formerly SAIF Partners) and Bollywood actress Deepika Padukone.

The learning platform offers classes taught by celebrities in creative fields such as music, cricket and comedy. Singer Neha Kakkar, comedian Biswa Kalyan Rath, cricketers Suresh Raina and Yuzvendra Chahal are among the some of the instructors.

FrontRow will use the funds to add more courses and categories, expand their community offering and go deeper into various course formats, the company said, as per a LiveMint report.

Based in Mumbai and Bengaluru, the startup has a 20-member team.

Commenting on her investment, Padukone said, "Growing up, I wasn’t exactly academically inclined. My interests lay in diverse spheres and activities outside of the traditional classroom - dance, sports, music, modelling and performance arts, to name a few. I’m glad that this gap in education has now been identified, and I look forward to partnering with this dynamic team on what I believe is going to be an exciting journey ahead."

Speaking about onboarding celebrities, Cofounder Mikhil Raj said, "Each one of them recalled that they faced problems while learning as well, and they wished they had access to courses like this when they were starting out. The instructors are all extremely bought into the concept, and we’re excited to have most of them as part of our cap table as well."

Akshay Bhushan, a partner at Lightspeed, said, “We’ve known this team for years and are extremely excited to back [them in] building a new paradigm for learning—a cross between learning, entertainment and community."