Yellow Class, an online hobby platform for young kids, has raised $6 million in a Series A funding round led by Elevation Capital. The round also witnessed participation from existing investors India Quotient, Titan Capital, and First Cheque.
Other investors including Vidit Aatrey (Co-founder, Meesho), Alok Mittal (Founder, Indifi), Vivekananda Hallekere (Co-founder, Bounce), Maninder Gulati (Global CSO, OYO) Abhinav Sinha (COO, OYO), Dhruv Agarwala (CEO, PropTiger) and Alvin Tse (Country Director, Xiaomi Indonesia ) have also joined in the round.
The fresh capital will be used for improving the product, developing more holistic content, building brand awareness, hiring for leadership roles, and driving expansion in more than 500 cities in India and abroad.
The Gurugram-based startup offers free extracurricular and co-curricular activities for children up to the age of 12. It also provides classes across 40 categories, including art, craft, dance, yoga, general knowledge, and logical reasoning. More than one million children have engaged for over 150 million minutes on the platform.
Started in June 2020 by Anshul Gupta and Arpit Mittal, Yellow Class focuses on breaking the stereotype which instills competition among kids from a young age. The campaign aims to reach maximum Indian households and across the globe through digital platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube.
Speaking about the fundraise, Co-founders of Yellow Class Anshul Gupta and Arpit Mittal said in a joint statement,
“In the last 10 years, there has been an exponential rise in the time spent by children passively consuming online content—which is extremely harmful to their growth. Studies have shown that more than 100 million Indian kids below 13 years of age spend an average of 100 hours per month on YouTube and other similar platforms.”
They further added, “Parents are actively looking for better, interactive alternatives that would be beneficial for their child’s cognitive growth. With Yellow Class, we are creating a new category in the EdTech space. Easy to access, fun, interactive classes that kids love. Now children can spend their time in active learning and hone new skills. We aim to serve 10 million monthly active users on the Yellow Class platform in a year from now. We are actively looking for top talent who can lead the growth of Yellow Class to serve this large market.”
Yellow Class caters to a wide range of co-curricular activities that develop the skills sets in kids during their growing years. The startup has witnessed immense growth during the lockdown on most of its online classes at almost no cost.
Deepak Gaur, Partner at Elevation Capital, has also commented about the platform saying,
“Given the increasing importance of holistic development, extracurricular learning represents one of the fastest-growing sectors in EdTech. Yellow Class offers the widest range of extracurricular activities for children through live-streamed classes with a gamified AI layer that builds interactivity and engagement. Anshul and Arpit’s journey as they built and scaled the platform in a matter of six months is truly an inspiration.”
Yellow Class courses are taught by accomplished mentors, including influencers, professionals, even celebrities, who are onboarded after a stringent selection process. Each class is attended by as many as 10,000 children simultaneously, where the AI gamification layer keeps them engaged through an interactive chatbot along with digital activities such as polls and quizzes.
Besides live classes, Yellow Class also offers polls, contests, DIY activities, audio, and video guides. Its team works with a “deeply connected” community of mothers to help them plan for their child’s personality development.
Yellow Class has a user base in over 52 countries, and a significant presence in India and the Middle East, with more than 200,000 parents being a part of the community.
Last year in November, the company had raised $1.3 million in its seed funding round led by India Quotient with participation from many marquee angels and startup founders.
