Tekie Raises $1.5 Million from GSV, Multiply Ventures and Better Capital

EdTech startup, Tekie, has raised $1.5 Million in seed funding co-led by Silicon Valley-based GSV Ventures and Multiply Ventures, an early-to-growth stage fund by former e-commerce executives from Myntra, Paytm, Flipkart, and Alibaba. Better Capital has also participated in the round. This is  the first seed investment in India by GSV, a female-led, multi-stage venture capital firm focused on the $7+ trillion education technology sector across "Pre-K to Gray" whose portfolio companies include Coursera, which recently went public, Masterclass, and Outlier.

Founded in 2017 by IIT Delhi graduate Naman Mukund and SRCC alumnus Anand Verma, Tekie is a live coding platform that brings the art of storytelling to make learning a movie-like experience. The edtech startup has created the world’s first animated series on coding to teach text-based coding to kids. In a short span, the startup has over 12,000 students learning on its platform and plans to utilize the funds to scale its operation to support increasing demand and build a strong team to unlock the next level of growth.

The classes are a blend of assisted live sessions by expert mentors with hands-on coding experience and new age learning methods designed to make learning to code an immersive experience. Tekie is on a mission to empower the next generation with future-ready skills and help them become innovators and changemakers.

Speaking on the partnership, Anand Verma, Co-Founder, Tekie, said: “As a first generation learner, I have seen the transformational impact of education first hand. When we started four years back, our goal was to build a product with focus on three pillars - put learning outcomes at the forefront, make learning an enjoyable experience, and provide the best teachers to learners. Our animated series, live projects and gamified learning journey makes the course an immersive experience and the students look forward to their sessions.”

Co-Founder of Tekie, Naman Mukund, further added that, “Having grown up in a digital-first world, the learning habits of students have evolved and the education system needs to keep up with the changing trends. Coding is not only an essential skill for the future but an effective way to build problem-solving and logical thinking among kids. Coding education is still at a nascent stage in our country, primarily restricted to block-based coding. We want students to go beyond just getting introduced to concepts and learn to write real code. Keeping this in mind, we designed our course to teach text-based coding.”

Mujtaba Wani from GSV Ventures commented, “We were impressed by the founding team’s “product first” approach to delivering online coding lessons that has resulted in high customer loyalty and learning impact. Tekie’s best-in-class NPS of 85 affirms that students are realizing value from the distinctive platform. GSV is honored to be backing Anand and Naman on their founding journey.” 

Raveen Sastry, Founder of Multiply Ventures and ex-co-founder of Myntra, said, “Tekie’s unique value proposition and student centric approach to teaching live coding via a story telling format is visible in the learning outcome and fits perfectly well into our investment Thesis for EdTech. Their high NPS scores and retention numbers are a reflection of product market fit. We are thrilled to partner with Anand & Naman to take this offering to as many school going students as possible.”

Vaibhav Domkundwar, founder and CEO of Better Capital, said, “Education and the learning process has become multi-dimensional over the last couple of years. Tekie has an innovative and distinct approach focussed on learning outcomes and class experience and we support their vision of empowering the next generation with future ready skills. We are glad to be a partner in their growth journey.”

Tekie plans to focus on expanding their product offerings and explore new revenue models. They have recently launched their B2B offering where they partner with schools to enable coding in their curriculum. NEP2020 has mandated schools to offer coding as a subject from class 6 onwards as part of 21st century skills.

Siddharth Sharma, Pro-Vice Chairman of Delhi Public School, Ujjain commented, “Tekie offers a holistic text based coding curriculum that got us excited. Their animation based storytelling methods and focus on application based learning sets them apart in the K-12 segment. We are glad to have partnered with Tekie in teaching coding to our students at NPS.”