Exclusive: Study material marketplace Notesgen raises pre-Series A funding

Notesgen Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which runs an online marketplace for study material, has raised Rs 1.25 crore ($178,550) in a pre-Series A round from new and existing individual investors, a top executive told VCCircle.

Hemant Bharat Ram, president of DCM Textiles, is one of the individual investors in this round.

“The company will use the funding for the development of the product (marketplace) as well as for marketing,” said Manak Gulati, chief executive of Notesgen.

Incorporated in 2015, Notesgen was founded by Manak Gulati, his mother Sushma Gulati, and Roman Khan.

The New Delhi-based company offers a mobile and web marketplace for educators, students and coaching centres to sell notes and content such as project reports, presentations and case studies.

The company claims to have 1,500,000 users on the platform.

In July 2017, Notesgen last raised funding, said Manak Gulati.

In February 2017, existing angel investors and Green House Ventures (GHV) Accelerator committed to invest Rs 1 crore ($148,000) in a transaction that would be led by the latter. However, GHV’s funding to Notesgen didn’t materialise, said Gulati.

In 2015, Notesgen had raised initial seed funding of $50,000 (Rs 31 lakh) from angel investors, going by VCCEdge, the data research platform of News Corp VCCircle.

The investors in the company include Rakesh Vij, chief business officer at Aricent; Satya Narayanan, chairman at Career Launcher; and Rajeev Saraf, chief executive at Lepton Software.

Deals in ed-tech space

A number of ed-tech startups offering varied services have raised funding in the past few months.

Earlier this month, Quizizz Inc., which specialises in gamified learning for students, raised $3 million (Rs 20.6 crore) in a round led by Nexus Venture Partners.

In August, WhizKidz Media Pvt. Ltd, which runs language learning app for pre-school kids called OckyPocky, raised undisclosed angel funding facilitated by Ah! Ventures.

In June, education services provider Chrysalis raised money from social-impact investors Menterra Venture Advisors and Artha Initiative.

In May, Smartivity Labs, which designs toys and learning projects for kids, raised $2 million (Rs 13 crore) in a round led by an individual investor. Ashish Kacholia, a stock market investor and director of research at Mumbai-based broking firm Lucky Securities, invested $1.7 million, and the rest was put in by existing investors S Chand Group, AdvantEdge and Ant Space.