Avalon Meta, a startup that combines education and gaming, has raised $420,000 in a funding round led by blockchain-based gaming company Peerplays.
Purvi Capital, a Chicago-based VC firm, and Abhinav Chhikara, former design head of Unacademy, also participated in the round, said the company in a statement. Avalon Labs, the parent company of Avalon Meta, also invested equity-free capital of up to $250,000 into the startup, it added.
Founded by Varun Mayya, Shashank Udupa, and Abhinav Arora, Avalon Meta is a hybrid between an education and gaming company. It aims to disrupt education through gaming. The startup projects itself as a brand new answer to Indian education, which it says is still in the stone ages. It provides a platform for students to learn real-life skills that mirror what is expected in the actual workforce today: sales, marketing, finance, design, coding, presentation, content creation, etc.
Explaining why education through gaming, Varun Mayya, Co-founder and CEO of Avalon Meta, said, “Unlike the plethora of bootcamps out there, our thoughts are that education will eventually become commoditized and educational content will have an effective price of zero in the future. Most courses barely manage a five percent user retention, which is why we decided to turn higher education into a game. Not gamify an existing solution, but make a full-fledged, proper game.”
Avalon Meta claims it has gathered over 50 million impressions across various platforms since its soft launch in December 2018.
Commenting on the funding, Varun said Peerplays has proved itself to be a pioneer in Blockchain-based gaming, and that makes the company just the right strategic partner to bring into Avalon. “Their insight and strategic experience in the gaming space – they’ve already lived the big shift into livestream, digital assets, and more – is something that we think Indian investors will take some time warming up,” he added.
Jonathan Baha’i, Peerplays founder, said Peerplays has become the leading name in blockchain gaming worldwide and that it immediately recognized the truly visionary approach of Avalon Meta to disrupt education through gaming.
Avalon Meta is run by the digital services company Avalon Labs, which was founded in 2017 by the same founding members of Avalon Meta. The startup is now focused on acquiring users this year, and aims to offer gamified education as the future of learning.
