EdTech PlanetSpark has raised $13.5 million from Prime Venture Partners and marquee global entrepreneurs including Binny Bansal, Deep Kalra, Dr. Ashish Gupta, Gokul Rajaram, and Shirish Nandkarni, in a Series-B round. It said it is building the world’s largest platform to help children become confident communicators, according to a press release. The freshly infused funds will be deployed towards aggressive business growth, product development and international expansion.
PlanetSpark had previously raised $3.7 million in previous rounds, from Prime Ventures, FIITJEE and several angel networks. The latest round takes the total amount raised by the EdTech to U$17.2 million, till date.
Kunal Malik, Co-Founder, PlanetSpark said, “Communication skills are the most fundamental and desirable skills that parents wish to impart in their kids. However, these skills are rarely taught anywhere. Till now, parents never thought that a reliable and structured option to develop communication skills of their children existed. With live learning coming of age in the past two years, we are the first global company to structure a program on new-age communication skills, for kids.”
The global market for communication skills is over $80 billion and remains largely untapped. PlanetSpark said it has seen growth over the past year from being an Indian company to a global player with a presence across US, Middle East and Europe. The company will use the fresh funds to penetrate deeper into the existing markets and expand into new geographies.
“India offers a pool of 1.8 million potential and current English teachers who can impart these skills to the entire globe. We plan to hire 50,000 teachers on our platform by the end of 2022. Overall, this is a golden opportunity to build the world leader in communication skills that didn't exist till now,” said Maneesh Dhooper, Co-founder, PlanetSpark.
Amit Somani, Partner, Prime Venture Partners, said, “Everyone learns a language but few learn to communicate well. Communication skills are going to be a life-defining skill in the 21st century.”
“PlanetSpark’s unique curriculum and the ‘IGNITE’ pedagogy for learning communication helps in creating long-term transformational learning journeys for children to become confident communicators. The platform has provided a phenomenal career opportunity for teachers like me to teach global students in the US and Canada, from the comfort of my home and create meaningful impact,” said Anusha Ahmed, a PlanetSpark teacher.
PlanetSpark was founded in 2017 by XLRI graduates and hostel wingmates, Kunal Malik and Maneesh Dhooper, who bring with them over a decade of experience each, in growth and scale-up of ace organizations such as Unilever, UrbanClap and Novartis.
