With witnessing a rather forced but transformative change in the way it is delivered and consumed, there has been a flush of capital coming edtech startups’ way. The sector has created the most unicorns this year so far, and it looks like the capital raise sprint is far from ending. This time around, it is PlanetSpark, a platform that specifically focuses on developing communication skills in K-12 students. The platform just raised $13.5Mn in a Series B round.
Marquee global entrepreneurs including Flipkart’s Binny Bansal, MakeMyTrip’s Deep Kalra, Helion Advisors’ Dr. Ashish Gupta, DoorDash’s Gokul Rajaram, and angel investor Shirish Nadkarni also participated in the current fundraising, which took the total amount raised by PlanetSpark to date to $17.2 million. PlanetSpark had previously raised USD 3.7 Mn in previous rounds, from Prime Ventures, FIITJEE and several angel networks.
According to the company, the proceeds will be utilized to fuel its expansion into newer markets, for product development, acquire talent in senior leadership, and strengthen its footprint into existing markets. It is currently present in India, the USA, the Middle East, and Europe.
PlanetSpark’s efforts are all the more important since the global market for communication skills is over $80 Billion, and continues to remain an untapped one. India, while being the second-largest internet market in the world, has nearly 1.8 million potential and current English teachers who can spread these skills.
The four-year-old edtech, founded by Kunal Malik and Maneesh Dhooper, provides public speaking lessons to kids between 4-16 years of age. It has clocked over 1 million classes from students across 13 countries to date.
Claiming to be a market leader in the communication skills for kids vertical, PlantSpark has clocked a month-on-month growth of 30% and has grown by 45 times over the past year (undoubtedly fuelled by the shift to online education). It plans to hire 50,000 teachers on our platform by the end of 2022, grow further by 30 times over the next two years and become the top global go-to destination for learning communication skills.
“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 the 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,” said Kunal Malik, co-founder, PlanetSpark.
