Edtech startup GreyAtom raises seed round led by Montane Ventures

Mumbai-based edtech startup GreyAtom has raised $1.2 million in seed round, led by Montane Ventures.

Existing investor Pravega Ventures participated in the round. Ritesh Arora, co-founder and CEO of BrowserStack, cloud web and mobile testing platform, also participated in his personal capacity.

“We plan to utilise the funds by diversifying our product line up to include courses for front-end engineering, back-end engineering, automation QA as well as expansion across India. The newer programs will be launched with an "Income Share Agreement" where there is no upfront payment to be made by the learners, only when they get a job, they share a fixed percentage of their income with us,” said Mitul Thakkar, co-founder and CEO of GreyAtom.

GreyAtom Edutech was founded in 2017 by Thakkar, Shweta Doshi and Mayuresh Shilotri. 

Prior to GreyAtom, Thakkar co-founded customer support startup called Customer360 along with Shilotri. That company was later acquired by Interactive Intelligence. Doshi has led large engagements in top tier technology companies in India and globally.

The company is a boot-camp style immersive learning programme that helps aspirants learn data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

According to the statement, GreyAtom has enabled more than 35,000 learners to reskill and upskill their tech knowledge.

The startup had previously raised $1 million from Pravega Ventures in January 2018. 

Mumbai and Bengaluru-based Montane Ventures is an early-stage venture capital fund founded in 2015 by Joshua Bornstein.

"GreyAtom's tech-first approach to skill learners beyond theory by focusing on application and practice enables the company to scale a business that's typically dependent on instructors or online videos," Bornstein added.

Edtech sector grabbed investors’ interest this month. There were quite a few deals that fructified in the segment. Delhi-based edtech company Sunstone Education Technology raised about $1.5 million in a seed round led by Prime Ventures Partners.

Online classroom platform Lido Learning raised $3 million in a Series A funding round from Ronnie Screwvala, promoter of education platform Upgrad, and Ananth Narayanan, chief executive at e-pharmacy Medlife, among other HNI (high networth individual) investors.

Noida-based exam preparation platform Gradeup raised $7 million in its Series A funding round from Times Internet (TIL), a subsidiary of media house Bennett Coleman and Co.