Norwest Venture Partners and IDG Ventures India have invested a $4.9 million Series A round in Noida-based e-learning solutions company iProf Learning Solutions. The stake acquired was not disclosed. The company offers a personal education tablet and a chain of Wi-Fi enabled e-learning centers across the country.
Norwest executive director Mohan Kumar, who joins the iProf board, had been working closely with the company for over nine months prior to signing the deal. “I’ve known Sanjay (Purohit) for 5-6 years and we talked about the business about a year ago,” said Kumar, speaking to Startupcentral from Bangalore. The deal was led by Norwest. It categorizes iProf as a education play but disruptive using the latest technologies such as tablet computing with broadband access and video conferencing.
The company plans to used the funds raised to expand its e-learning centers in metros and Tier II and III cities and launch new products, said a press release. iProf was founded in 2009 by Purohit, a former IAS officer who earlier led US-based companies such as Danriver, Best and Baker and LMCO. In India Purohit was part of the founding team at first generation BPO startup Epicenter Technologies.
iProf currently has 20 iStudy zones running and plans to reach 100 by the end of 2011, including company-owned and franchisee outfits. It also announced a tie-up today with open university IGNOU, which has approximatey 1,400 study zones across the country, to conduct diploma programmes for 75 of its courses on the iProf platform. Norwest’s Kumar expects the company to roll out 500 centers in two years, at least 12 different subjects and courses and 100,000-150,000 students using iProf’s tablet in that time frame.
Sudhir Sethi, founder and CMD of IDG will join Kumar on the iProf board.
Image Courtesy: iProf
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