[Funding] Zerodha's Rainmatter Capital leads INR 2.7 Crores angel investment in QShala

QShala is an online curiosity platform designed to foster life-skills & curiosity in children. The platform has raised INR 2.7 Cr in angel funding. Zerodha's start-up incubator and fund, Rainmatter Capital led the round. It also saw participation from other notable angels including Mindtree co-founder Mr. Kalyan Banerjee.

Other investors and mentors include Ms. Preeti Sawhney (Former Director, Lowe Lintas), Mr. Sanjay Tambwekar (CTO, Qwikcilver), Mr. Suresh Kumar Pinglay (Former Vice President, Oracle, India), Mr. Chetan Vinchhi (India Head, Uptycs), Mr. Avinash Umapathy (Partner, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas), Ms. Akshita Ganesh (Product and Strategy Lead, Reforge), and Mr. Nikhil Bhandarkar (Co-founder, Ubiquity Capital).

About QShala

As an outcome of the pandemic, the move to online learning presents a possibility to create a more effective method of educating students. Children today are digital age citizens, living in the Age of Information. But, with increased and easier access to information at our fingertips, there is little effort to dig deeper to explore the "how" and "why" behind the "what" of information. QShala programs help in overcoming this attitude. It equips children with a questioning mindset and life skills to stay curious (with a q), confident, and aware learners in an ever-changing world.

Mr. Raghav Chakravarthy, Co-founder, QShala, praised the support from Rainmatter Capital and other investors. He said, "These investments reinforce our belief in QShala's curriculum, learning experience, and the platform through which we address the need for developing skills and aptitudes in young minds."

"On this point, we do meet the similar needs identified and called out in the just-released National Education Policy, 2020. We have designed QShala to address the latent curiosity quotient of every child. We are very privileged to have very talented and eclectic team members that undertakes extensive research to create content for the QShala programs in fun formats. This included quizzes, sessions, and interactive programs to help sharpen life skills," he, further, added.

About the investment

Talking about the plans with the funding, Chakravarthy also said, "Our programs start with children from class 1 onwards. We aim to expand our footprint to many more cities across the country; the world to cover children in the age groups of 8 to 16 years. We have designed the Quriosity Curriculum to nurture and nourish their imagination and curiosity while focusing on learning that goes way beyond the school textbook curriculum.”

Speaking on what made him (and his team) come up with the idea, he said, "We often wish we were taught a variety of skills when we were young or were in school. This sentiment is what led Sachin Ravi, my co-founder and I to build QShala. Our goal is to bridge this gap, at the right time and in the right way."

Mr. Nithin Kamath, Founder & CEO, Zerodha, added “It is important for children to develop critical and lateral thinking from a young age much beyond their classroom framework in today’s world. We are rapidly moving towards subjective learning where they would need to build a skill set actually required for employability in the future. We have always been big believers in the philosophy of constant upskilling and retraining. Rainmatter is glad to partner with like-minded people who are focused on helping kids build these skill sets.”

Walnut Knowledge Solutions Pvt. Ltd. owns QShala. It is a pioneer in the quizzing space having engaged over 1,50,000+ adults and children across the country for a decade. It also conducts the QShala Family Quiz on Sundays, which has seen over 8500+ families participate to date. Walnut is also the first company in the world to conduct a quiz on all 7 continents. It also holds two Limca Records for the same.