Next Education acquires firm for computer education

Buys IIT-B-incubated start-up InOpen Technologies for its K-12 computer science product Computer Masti, in an all-cash deal

Hyderabad-based Next Education has acquired Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B)-incubated start-up InOpen Technologies for its K-12 computer science product Computer Masti, in an all-cash deal. Computer Masti was created jointly by IIT-B and InOpen and has a series of e-books to teach computer science in schools.

Rupesh Kumar Shah, chief executive officer of InOpen, said the acquisition will scale Computer Masti and approximately three million students will use CS 101 (basics of computer science and programming) by July 2017.

InOpen was was co-founded by Sridhar Iyer and Rupesh Kumar Shah in 2009. Computer Masti is a core computer science curriculum. It focuses on building life skills through computer science by emphasising underlying concepts and not merely software-specific skills.

After the acquisition, all InOpen employees will move to Next Education.

InOpen started with a seed capital of Rs 25 lakh and got a boost when State Bank of India lent Rs 50 lakh without any collateral in August 2010, while venture capital fund VenturEast invested $500,000 later.

Founded in 2007, Next Education has catered to more than seven million students studying in their 7,000-plus partner schools.