WhiteHat Jr has raised a funding of $10 million in series A round of financing. The round was led by the existing investors- Nexus Venture Partners and Omidyar Network. According to reports by ET, the ed-tech startup was also backed by Owl Ventures, the San Francisco based investment firm. This is Owl Venture’s second ed-tech gamble placed in India within the time period of 3 months. It has earlier participated in Byju’s, the market leader, $150 million financings round along with Qatar Investment Authority in July.
Mumbai based firm, WhiteHat Jr teaches coding and programming to students between the ages of 6 to 14. It has been looking forward to adding more courses under its tech curriculum for children. The firm aims at guiding young adults and kids on building digital products and applications and working with animation. With the help of the funds, WhiteHat Jr would further strengthen its technology platform and boost its marketing and branding efforts.
Karan Bajaj, Chief Executive of WhiteHat, commented,
“Our mission is to harness the natural creativity of kids and shift their mindset from an early age from being consumers to creators of technology. It’s been heartening to see the projects of kids in the first six months of launch as they are creating immensely creative, high utility digital applications that are bound to have a long-term impact.”
The coders of tomorrow
WhiteHat Jr was founded in November 2018 by Karan Bajaj, bestselling novelist, and Discovery Networks India ex-CEO. According to its website, the company aims at preparing the kids to thrive in the future world where AI and Robotics will produce 800 million jobs. With its live online interaction with teachers, the young ones would be taught principles of coding-sequence, structure, logic, commands, and algorithmic thinking.
Amit A Patel, Managing Director at Owl Ventures, believes that WhiteHat Jr has created something unique, scalable, and highly relevant for markets worldwide.
The funding comes within a year in which WhiteHat Jr raised $1.3 million from Nexus Venture Partners and Omidyar Network. The company claims to have over 500 plus teachers onboard, 150,000 student trials and conducts about 1,000 classes online on a day to day basis.
