Kris Gopalakrishnan, Atul Nishar invest in startup 'Avagmah'

Avagmah, a Bangalore-based tech startup focussed on higher education, today said it has received funding from Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan and Atul Nishar, founder of Hexaware and Aptech Computer Education.
The company, however, did not disclose the details of the current round of funding, but said Avagmah has secured USD 5 million in investments in the last 18 months.
"In the same time it has grown 8 times, and has already become operationally profitable. Avagmah will use the latest investment on technology enhancement in acquiring new Indian university clients," Avagmah said in a statement.
Avagmah's other investors include Lionrock Capital, Singapore, Ganesh Krishnan (TutorVista founder), and Neeraj Bhargava (founder of Zodius Capital).

It currently works with three universities that include Pondicherry University, Bharathidasan University and Los Angeles-based UCLA Extension, it added.
"The current brick and mortar higher education system is facing major challenges of excellence and access, with only 24 million students enrolled out of the potential 120 million. I see a great potential in startups like Avagmah which can bring in positive disruption in our education system through technology," Gopalakrishnan said.

Avagmah's platform, which works on a managed services model, assists universities with digital marketing technology. It also provides application-based and web technology solutions for delivery of courses by universities.
Using Avagmah's platform, universities are helping working

professionals and remote students study for a degree program on the go and connect with their faculty for lectures and doubt clearing.
At present, 45 per cent of the students who are enrolled for various university courses through Avagmah's platform are from Tier II and III cities, it said.
"Shortage of quality faculty is the single major challenge
which universities are facing today. Universities will gradually resort to using technology to increase their reach and ease faculty access to students," Nishar said.
Founded in 2013, Avagmah was founded by Karthik KS. Its leadership team includes Sankar Bora, co-founder of Myntra and an NIT Kozhikode alumnus and Prasad Palla an ex-Microsoft, Informatica, USA and IIT-K and IIM-B alumnus.

"Avagmah is now focussed on scaling its success to grow 10x in the next 2 years," Karthik said.