Masai School, a Bengaluru-based online coding school, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from 21 angel investors from the Indian startup ecosystem, including CRED Founder Kunal Shah, Paytm Founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma, among others.
The round also witnessed participation from some of the leading founders and CXOs of companies such as Pine Labs, NoBroker, Delhivery and ShareChat.
With the fresh capital, the company aims to build a more robust student curriculum. The latest investment comes at a time when the EdTech ecosystem is seeing significant traction, with the coronavirus outbreak forcing people to shift to online learning.
Co-founded by Prateek Shukla, Nrupul Dev and Yogesh Bhat in June 2019, Masai School offers programmes in Full Stack Web Development (full-time and part-time programmes) and a UI/UX Design Programme (full-time programme), and are planning to launch Data Analytics, Product Management, and more programmes over the next few months.
Masai School’s vision is to be able to help young professionals launch their careers in a field of their choice, irrespective of what background they come from. The platform offers learners the ‘Study now, Pay later’ option, democratising access to quality education. Masai School focuses on Tier II and Tier III financially underprivileged students and provides them to learn and get placed in a software company.
Prateek Shukla, Co-founder and CEO of Masai School, said,
“For an institute that strictly and solely focuses on outcomes, it is a great endorsement to have the right kind of industry leaders to help and support the market itself. With the advocacy and support from these stalwarts, bridging the gap between educational institutes and technology companies to meet real-time industry requirements is not far away.”
The company has partnered with startups like large information technology services firms and multinational companies for placements. So far, it has placed around 400 students and the number is expected to go to 1,500 in the next two quarters.
Amrish Rau, CEO of Pine Labs added,
“Coding schools such as Masai School have started to kick-start a movement altogether in the cohort-based courses market segment. We are all aware of the shortage in quality education for software and technology, and how hard it is for the technology and IT industry startups to hire the right talent even at entry-level positions. We want to enable this movement and help Masai lead this from the forefront.”
The startup claims to be on track to make $1 million in monthly revenue by December 2021 or January 2022. Masai School is aiming to have close to 10,000 students studying with the company across courses by next year.
In June, Masai School acquired Design Shift Academy, a Bengaluru-based design institute that provides guidance on user interface and user experience design.
Earlier this year, Masai School raised its Series A round worth $5 million led by Omidyar Network with the participation from existing investors including Unitu Ventures, India Quotient. Prior to that, the company had raised $2.5 million in a funding round from Unitus Ventures, and other existing investors in August 2020.
