 "InOpen raises Series A funding from Japanese firm")
In August 2011, venture capital firm Ventureast had invested $5,00,000 in a seed round for a minority stake in InOpen. Sateesh Andra, managing partner, VenturEast Tenet Fund had earlier said that InOpen’s biggest strength is its curriculum, available in both print and digital formats.
The company co-founded by Rupesh Kumar Shah and Dr Sridhar Iyer in 2009 focuses on building high quality content through intense and extensive research. Their flagship product, ‘Computer Masti’ is a computer science learning solution that has been implemented in over 200 schools and used by 5,00,000 students in India. It has its newly introduced Science curriculum, Small Science.
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InOpen is also looking to raise further capital to cater to the ever growing demand of domestic and international markets and would soon initiate conversation with like-minded financial investors.
“Yes, we will raise more money. The idea is to raise part money from strategic investor and part from an impact fund or a Financial Investor,” said Rupesh Kumar Shah, Co-Founder & CEO, InOpen Technologies. The company said that this is a landmark transaction and the first time a Japanese Education Major has invested in an early stage Indian education company.
The key objective of InOpen and Benesse’s collaboration is to jointly develop products for the global education market, starting with the USA and Japan. InOpen is in discussions with investors, both financial and impact funds for further investment. “The capital will allow us to build a strong team, increase our customer support bandwidth and further expand on our leadership position in this sector,” said Shah.
Benesse has made this investment from the Benesse Social Investment Facility (BSIF), a facility established recently to invest in companies focused on solving social issues in education, child care and other related fields in emerging Asian countries and Japan. InOpen is the first investee of BSIF, said Shah.
"Benesse’s strategic partnership with InOpen has ascertain our belief of changing the way computer science is taught to students globally and helping us build a generation of structured thinkers, who will be better citizens of tomorrow. The capital will allow us to build a strong team, increase our customer support bandwidth and further expand on our leadership position in this sector,” explained Shah.
Unitus Capital advised the company on this transaction. Amit Kumar Rathi and Abhishek Fogla, Vice Presidents at Unitus Capital said that they expected InOpen to soon become an education multinational. “Education in India is now fast maturing, with more and more thrust on conceptual learning through digital techniques, which is the forte of InOpen,” they added.
Benesse Holdings, Inc. is a Japanese holding company engaged in education, lifestyle, senior/nursing care and language/leadership training businesses in Japan and international markets.
Benesse was established in 1955 as a publishing company. It later diversified into the business of providing correspondence courses for K-12 and pre-school segments. In 1990s and 2000s, the company entered new business domains including language education, childcare magazines, nursing care business, among others.
Takaho Miki, General Manager, Global Social Innovation Department, Benesse Holdings, Inc, commented, “We believe that computer science education based on InOpen’s educational materials will contribute significantly to solving social problems by improving future employment opportunities and income levels for schoolchildren in India, including those from low-income families. By investing in InOpen and strengthening its collaborative relationship, we aim to promote the further expansion of computer science education in India and other.”
InOpen achieved break-even in FY2012, and has seen three times growth from 2010-11. In the year of 2014, the company will be on its way to reach 1 million students.
It has two revenue streams: schools and governments. In schools, it supplies content, teachers and system administrators while with respect to state governments, InOpen works with the governments of Assam and other states to teach government school students and junior employees.