- The coding school is targeting 10x growth in student enrolment in the next 12 months
- Plans to hire trainers and introduce new courses
Mumbai, 18 August 2020 – India’s first career-focused alternative education start-up, Masai School, has raised a Pre-series A funding round of USD 2.5 million led by Unitus Ventures, joined by India Quotient & AngelList India.
Masai School closes its Pre-series A funding at a time when the job market in the country is grappling with pandemic challenges. The company intends to use the funding to step up efforts in imparting quality education to students and make them future-ready. Founded by Prateek Shukla, Nrupul Dev, and Yogesh Bhat, Masai School began operations in June 2019. It currently trains tech aspirants in Full Stack Web and Android Development, and also helps them get placed through its partner network. By integrating the Income Sharing Agreement (ISA), they allow students to pay the course fee after they get a high paying, relevant job.
Speaking on the announcement, Prateek Shukla, CEO, and Co-Founder, Masai School said, “We began our journey a year ago with an objective to find untapped talent in the country, train and place them for the most in-demand jobs in the country. Our initial student base, largely from non-engineering backgrounds, small towns with limited financial backgrounds take up the challenge of learning to code and finding a career path for themselves. We support them by providing them a rigorous training program without charging any upfront fees and help them kick start their careers through our placement program. We are proud to have placed more than 82% of our graduates at an average starting salary of INR 6.6 LPA so far.
This round of funding will help us to go deeper with our original mission; while also expanding our offerings to meet the demand of companies hiring CS graduates equipped with industry-relevant skills & attitude required for rapid growth. In the long run, we aim to become a higher education alternative, catering to students & working professionals alike in preparing a future-ready Indian tech workforce. We aim to enable the dreams of 1000+ learners in the next 12 months.”
Funding –
With a key focus on tech and curriculum, the funds will be used to:
- Hire industry experts to build and impart the curriculum
- Strengthen current offerings – Full stack, web, android development
- Tap into new learner base – from freshers to working professionals, computer science graduates and college students
- Build new disciplines – UX, Product Management, Data Science
- Strengthen its classroom and digital infrastructure
Surya Mantha, Senior Partner, Unitus Ventures said, “Unitus Ventures has been a pioneer in job-tech. Masai envisions to narrow down the extensive skill-gap and employability issues in India. We share the vision and with this partnership, we aim to drive positive economic and social impact together.”
Madhukar Sinha, Co-Founder and General Partner at Early-stage venture capital investor India Quotient said, “We are glad to support Masai School with its vision and purpose, since inception. India has a vast talent pool that is looking for better career opportunities and Masai School is playing a key role in identifying and training the workforce. They are also helping employers access the right and ready workforce without having to train them.”
About Masai School
With campuses in Bangalore and Patna along with online operations, Masai School is a 21st-century career-focused skill-building school that offers a variety of learning tracks such as Full Stack Web Development, Android Development & Software Development Engineer. The company follows the ISA model which allows students to ‘Study now and pay later’. Till date, Masai School has trained 100+ students across 4 batches, with more than 50% of students from non-CS and non-metro backgrounds.
Our core focus is to empower aspiring developers by focusing on discipline, attitude, problem-solving & logical capabilities; programmers who are capable of navigating the unknown & desired by the best tech companies. Masai School’s hiring partners include Samsung, Sharechat, UrbanClap, Instamojo, Propelled, Vyapar, RevvSales, Lendingkart, No broker, Small case & Paytm Money.
