Doubtnut, a multi lingual online learning platform for students today announced that it has raised a pre-series A round amounting to Rs 3.5 crore led by WaterBridge Ventures with participation from Omidyar Network. Doubtnut plans to use the capital to expand its platform, add more subjects, support more Indian languages and accelerate the development of several exciting new product features. Sarbvir Singh, Partner at WaterBridge Ventures, will join Doubtnut's Board of Directors and Omidyar Network will also appoint a Director to the Board.
On Doubtnut’s Android app, students can find the answer to a question by simply clicking the image of the question on the app. The application uses advanced artificial intelligence technologies to decipher the question from the image and consequently serve the corresponding video solution from Doubtnut’s library. The company has created one of the world’s largest library of curriculum specific educational content videos.
Tanushree Nagori, cofounder of Doubtnut said, “Aditya and I are passionate about improving the level of education in India. We sincerely believe that good education is a fundamental right of every child and we, at Doubtnut, are committed to provide world-class education in the most economical way possible to every student in India.”
Sarbvir Singh, partner at WaterBridge Ventures said, “We believe that a student first, multi lingual approach is needed if educational initiatives are to work at scale in the country. Students need on-demand solutions to problems in a language that they can understand. We look forward to working with Aditya and Tanushree to make their vision a reality”.
WaterBridge Ventures is a venture capital firm investing in early stage ventures with offices in Delhi and Bengaluru. WaterBridge invests across seed to Series A stages with a first investment cheque size of up to $1 million and is generally the first institutional investor in promising startups. WaterBridge also has a Scout program where it engages with Founders at a very early stage of their ventures.
“Doubtnut’s innovative solutions will meet the needs of millions of Indians students by providing real time answers to their questions,” said Namita Dalmia, principal at Omidyar Network. “We met Aditya and Tanushree through the accelerator program we supported with Village Capital in 2017. They are highly capable and passionate entrepreneurs who leveraged the program and substantially refined their product and business model. We are excited to be part of the next step of their journey.”
“Doubtnut aims to impart world class learning to students by leveraging cutting edge technology, such as Machine Learning driven Math Image Recognition, and burgeoning information inclusivity in India,” added Aditya Shankar, cofounder at Doubtnut.
The unique instant doubt resolution service with a simple user interface addresses a big yet unmet need of students across the country. The application is being used by students across India who get high quality video solutions whenever they are stuck with a problem. Doubtnut currently answers Math doubts and can read questions in Hindi and English. Doubtnut’s mission is to provide affordable, world-class education to the millions of students going beyond the urban users that most current solutions target.
Omidyar Network is a philanthropic investment firm dedicated to harnessing the power of markets to create opportunity for people to improve their lives. Established in 2004 by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam, the organization invests in and helps scale innovative organizations to catalyze economic and social change. Omidyar Network has committed more than $1 billion to for-profit companies and nonprofit organizations that foster economic advancement and encourage individual participation across multiple initiatives, including education, emerging tech, financial Inclusion, governance and citizen engagement, and property rights.
