Newton School Raises $5 Mn In Series A Funding Round Led By RTP Global The capital will be used for team expansion, scaling student intake, and product development
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Bengaluru-based edtech startup Newton School on Monday announced to have raised $5 million in a Series A round of financing, led by RTP Global. The funding round saw participation from existing investors Nexus Venture Partners, Prophetic Ventures, and Unacademy co-founders Gaurav Munjal, Roman Saini, and Hemesh Singh. Flipkart's CEO Kalyan Krishnamoorthy, CRED's Kunal Shah, Freshworks' Girish Mathrubootham, Udaan's Sujeet Kumar, and Razorpay founders Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar along with a slew of angels also participated in the round.
Founded in 2019 by Nishant Chandra and Siddharth Maheshwari, the edtech platform enables people to be highly skilled software developers and get into a tech career in top companies and startups.
The company's six months long cohort-based course includes over 1000 hours of coding, more than 50 hours of soft skills training, live projects, and mentorship oversight - designed by reverse engineering industry requirements and taught by industry professionals.
"On one side you have over a million college graduates every year with low single-digit employability rate and on the other side, there are 1000s of companies struggling to find talent. We aim to bridge this massive gap through Newton School's personalized learning platform. We are building an online academy and solving the deep problem of employability of graduates," commented Nishant Chandra, co-founder, Newton School.
The startup is the brainchild of Nishant Chandra and Siddharth Maheshwari, two friends from IIT Roorkee, and began operations in 2019. Its six-month pay after placement track, allows learners to earn INR 5-40 lakh per annum salary in top-notch companies.
"Our fee model allows people to cross financial and location barriers thus democratizing access to software development learning. We have a student whose father is an autorickshaw driver and had lost all their livelihood due to COVID, he ended up as a software developer in one of the top edtech startups and is taking care of his family now," stated Siddharth Maheshwari, co-founder, Newton School.
Its students have been said to be hired by more than 100 companies ranging from top startups like Zomato, Unacademy, Nykaa, Affle to large MNCs like Publicis Sapient, Thoughtworks, Motorola, Nutanix.
"Engineering education spend in India alone is $10 billion but the net outcome is low employability rates. Newton School is bridging this massive gap through its product-centric personalized platform. In a world where increasing skills matter much more than degrees, Newton School is in a prime position to not just tap into this huge market but also to create a massive impact on the lives of millions of students by providing them access to high-quality industry-oriented education," added Kirill Kozhevnikov, partner, RTP Global.
The company plans to help companies hire a qualified and job-ready workforce of more than10,000 people, which is larger than all top colleges combined, in 2021 alone. Additionally, the capital will be used to expand the team and to develop products utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) to streamline and personalize the learning journey of each student.
With an aim to bridge the gender gap in the workforce, it recently launched a women-led all-women tech program to help women re-enter the workforce, equipped with industry-ready skills.
