Doubtnut raises USD 15 mn in funding led by Tencent

Edu-tech platform Doubtnut on Friday said it has raised USD 15 million (about Rs 107 crore) in a funding round led by Tencent.

The series A round also saw participation from existing investors, Omidyar Network India, AET, Japan and Ankit Nagori (former Flipkart executive) along with Sequoia Capital India, a statement said.

Doubtnut, which has over 1.2 million daily users, had raised pre-series A funding in March last year led by Surge (Sequoia Capital India's programme), Waterbridge Ventures, Omidyar Network India and AET, Japan, it added.

"Doubtnut will use the funds to widen its pan-India distribution, build on its content repository to cater to a fast expanding target group, invest in strengthening its technology stack and scaling its team," it said.

Set up in October 2017 by Tanushree Nagori and Aditya Shankar, Doubtnut currently caters to K-12, IIT JEE and NEET students. It offers a multi-lingual online learning platform that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies, and provides video-based solutions in response to students' queries.

Students have to send a photograph of the question they want to solve, and Doubtnut app provides a video of the solution while simultaneously suggesting other concept videos to help students learn the topic better. The app can read questions in 11 Indian languages.

The company has over 13 million monthly active users across several platforms (web, app, Youtube and Whatsapp). It said it has witnessed 30X growth in its daily active users since March 2019.

"...despite a massive growth in our user base, there is still a significant target audience that is yet to be tapped. We aim to use technology to provide a democratic, comprehensive and easily accessible education solution to all students - in the language and manner that they best understand," Doubnut co-founder Nagori said.