School of Accelerated Learning (SOAL), which is the country’s first startup hybrid learning venture, has raised US$ 300,000 in its first round of funding. While the lead investor was Astarc Ventures, others also participated, such as Srinivas Kollipara, founder-T-Hub, Ramki Gaddipatti, founder & CTO, Zeta, and Krishnan Menon, founder, BeeCash.
The newly-acquired funds will be used to launch the second campus of this startup in Mumbai by the end of the year and also introduce a host of new programmes in creative technology, such as digital marketing, AI, blockchain and design. In the next two years, SOAL aims to launch its tech-enabled learning spaces in metros as well as tier 2 cities.
SOAL’s hybrid learning method combines the ease of access provided by online learning to the engagement offered by offline learning. The Company is seeking to resolve the two-fold problem of education and employability, so that India’s fresh engineers stand to gain as much as the talent-starved industry.
SOAL boasts of having placed its engineering graduates with the best of organsiations, including ShopClues, ClearTax, FactSet, ThoughtWorks, NowFloats, and Schrocken. Its students have been offered salaries at par with the top 20 Indian engineering colleges.
The Mumbai-based Astarc Ventures, has invested in a range of technology ventures earlier, but it is the first time that it is investing in the learning technology space.
“We think there is an acute shortage of demand and supply with respect to tech talent in the market and with the tech stacks evolving rapidly, an effective upskilling solution with the focus on the industry is the key to bridge the gap.”, says Mr. Salil Musale, director, Astarc Ventures.
The founders believe in the scale of impact that SOAL will have. Co-founder Pratik Agarwal says, “With SOAL, we are not only impacting one individual but an entire bunch of people around them. Raising someone’s aspiration trickles down through generations and that is the impact that we at SOAL, are looking at. We are here to build what a college of the 21st century needs to look like—dynamic, accessible, and fast. Our learners are picking up skills that will help them embrace and drive disruption. We are on our way to changing how we learn tech forever, and this is just the beginning!”
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