Gray Matters India to raise Rs 12-cr by year-end

Received funding of Rs 4.5-cr from Michael and Susan DELL Foundation in Nov 2013

Gray Matters India (GMI), a Hyderabad-based social enterprise startup focused on providing assessment and actionanable outcomes to schools and students, is in the process of raising around Rs 12 crore in a pre-Series-A round of funding by the end of this financial year.

"We are in active discussion with a few private equity and venture capital firms and are hoping to close the deal by the end of this year," Sowmya Velayudham, director (business development) at GMI, told Business Standard.

GMI, which was incubated at Gray Matters Capital in 2009 and was spun-off as a separate entity in early 2013, had received a funding of Rs 4.5 crore from Michael and Susan DELL Foundation in November 2013.

According to Velayudham, GMI plans to deploy the proceeds of the proposed fundaising to develop a mobile app for assessment, besides expanding its business to new areas.

GMI currently has two business channels -- directly selling assessment tools to schools, and offering services to enterprises and corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. So far, GMI has worked with over 10,000 schools, both private and government, assessing more than 350,000 students across nine states, including Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Haryana.

"The development of the mobile app for Android-enabled mobiles and tablets is under way, which should be ready for launch by early next year, even as we are gearing to meet the increasing demand for paper-based assessment tests in semi-urban and rural schools," she said, adding that GMI was planning to directly reach out to parents for their kids' assessment, besides looking at going after government projects.