Pariksha raises undisclosed sum from prominent angels, Venture Catalyst

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Pune-based edutech startup Pariksha has raised an undisclosed amount of investment in an extension of its pre-series A round from a clutch of angel investors.

The round was led by INSEAD Angels, IIT Kanpur Angels, Nikhil Vora and Swati Mehra of Sixth Sense Ventures and Saahil Bhatia, director of Temasek Holdings India, along with few other top executives, the company said on April 20. Existing investor Venture Catalysts also participated in the round.

The startup is a vernacular test-preparation company, with operations in 11 states. The company says it offers classes in six languages and serves more than two million users, of whom more than 65,000 are paid subscribers.

Founded in 2015 by Karanvir Singh, Utkarsh Bagri, Vikram Shekhawat and Deepak Choudhary, who graduated from IIT Kanpur and Pune’s Symbiosis University, the company is targeting the test-prep market in non-metro India.

Their students are aspirants looking for state government jobs. Annually, 75 million aspirants spend $2.3 billion on preparing for these vernacular state government job exams, a statement issued by the company said.

“We are solving the problem of accessibility for 90% of these 75 million aspirants who do not have access to good test preparation options, Pariksha helps students from Bharat prepare for state government job exams in the language of their choice through live-streaming classes,” founder Karanvir Singh said.