Chrysalis raises pre-series A funding from Gray Matters Capital

Educational reform organization Chrysalis on Tuesday announced that it has raised pre-series A funding from Indian education sector focused impact investor Gray Matters Capital.

Boutique investment bank Unitus Capital acted as an exclusive financial advisor to Chrysalis, while impact investment management firm CBA Capital supported Gray Matters Capital in this transaction.

The amount raised will be used by Chrysalis to build on its research and development, and to strengthen its multi-channel approach to take its 'Education for Human Potential' movement to every child in the country.

This will further intensify their efforts to bring change in the education system comprising of K-12 schools, which have 250 million children enrolled of which 100 million are in the private school segment.

"Our mission is to stand up for the child, by reforming the Indian education system in a way that every child realizes his/her human potential. In our estimation, we have more than 15,00,000 schools failing in this regard. We have established a roadmap to bring in a fundamental change in the system by engaging five principal mediums - policy makers, government schools, private schools, parents and public, by open-sourcing our intellectual property selectively," said founder and CEO, Chrysalis, Chitra Ravi.

"We are committed to this mission and were seeking investors who were aligned to it. We found the right fit in Gray Matters Capital, which has a vision to transform human lives using education as a medium," she added.

"We see Chrysalis as one of the most innovative, mission driven and student centric educational enterprises in India, which has the potential of bringing about a tangible change in the way education is imparted in our schools. This investment is a validation of the work put in by Chitra and her team in addressing the critical need to improve quality across the education spectrum. We are proud to fund a woman led enterprise like Chrysalis," said India CEO, Gray Matters Capital, Ragini Bajaj Chaudhary.

ThinkRoom, the flagship product of Chrysalis is a child-centric academic programme based on human potential framework, which has been developed in-house through 16 years of intense pedagogic research.

It aims to help every school student to discover his or her potential while developing academic excellence and replaces programmes and textbooks whose focus is limited to academic outcomes.

ThinkRoom offers a comprehensive solution to schools, including learning material with child focused curriculum, teacher assistant tools, student assessments and tech-enabled teaching and home learning applications.

In line with its goal of 'Education for Human potential' for every child, Thinkroom, which currently caters to over 250,000 students in 500+ schools spread across 11 Indian states, will be reaching out to Affordable Private Schools (APS), which charge an average monthly fee of Rs 1750 per student.

Last year, Chrysalis had introduced 'Buzzle Cards' that help impart core concepts of Mathematics and English using Augmented Reality (AR) through the Buzzle AR Beta app. The app animates images on the cards making the learning experience immersive for the student.

Gray Matters Capital had funded the development of this educational innovation through its edLABS initiative.