New Delhi: The pioneer of Venture Capital in India is set to launch GVFL Seed Stage Fund with a target corpus of Rs 200 crore. The fund would invest in tech-enabled, sector-agnostic and asset-light startups.
GVFL has invested in India’s fastest-growing K -12 (kindergarten to 12th) pedagogy company Saarthi Pedagogy.
Saarthi Pedagogy currently covers over 1,500 schools across India and has onboarded two lakh students. The investment will help the Ahmedabad-based B2B Ed-Tech startup expand its reach to 5,000+ schools and onboard over 8 lakh students in its next growth phase.
“We are happy to invest in Saarthi Pedagogy in its Pre-Series A funding round. Saarthi Pedagogy serves affordable schools as an academic growth partner by providing 360° solutions through customised academic content mapped with an AI-backed learning management system and modern enterprise resource planning features. We believe Saarthi Pedagogy has the right credentials to bridge the gap between grades and knowledge and deliver an end-to-end solution for schools, teachers, and students,” said Kamal Bansal, Managing Director of GVFL.
Saarthi Pedagogy offers personalisation and improves the teaching and learning experiences based on the learner’s needs. It does not aim to substitute teachers in school but rather complements them by simplifying their lives. It provides personalised lesson plans based on the learning needs of students and auto-generated classwork/homework/report cards. The platform combines textbooks, technology, content, and training on a single platform to achieve improved learning outcomes.
GVFL is one of the earliest venture capital funds in the country and has been actively investing in early to growth-stage tech startups. GVFL has invested risk capital in over 100 startups across sectors over the years and is looking to scale up its investments. The government of Gujarat has committed Rs. 1000 crore for the next five years for Venture Capital investments in sector-agnostic tech startups in Gujarat.
Its existing fund – GVFL Emerging Enterprises Fund – invests in early to growth-stage startups and MSMEs with a ticket size of Rs. 5 crores to Rs. 20 crores.
We will also launch the GVFL Seed Stage Fund with a target corpus of Rs. 200 crores which will invest Rs. 50 lakh to Rs. 2 crores in seed stage, early traction, proof of concept, or product prototype-ready startups. Both funds will invest in startups and MSMEs in Ed-tech, D2C, Health-tech, Bio-tech, SaaS, Deep-tech, AI & ML, Consumer Business, and Manufacturing spaces,” said Mihir Joshi, President of GVFL.
