Edtech firm Arivihan raises $4.17 million from Prosus, Accel
The funds will be used for expansion into three new states, growing its AI research and language support capabilities, and strengthening its on-ground marketing and distribution efforts. 'When we went to tier II cities, we found that 65% of the students were from Hindi-medium backgrounds. There weren't many platforms catering to them, as most didn't offer content or doubt-solving support in Hindi, especially at an affordable price,' cofounder and chief executive Ritesh Singh Chandel told ET. Founded in 2021 by Chandel, Sonu Kumar, and Rushabh Kothari, the Indore, Madhya Pradesh-based company provides a fully automated artificial intelligence (AI)-powered tutoring platform that offers personalised learning through interactive video lessons, instant doubt resolution, and AI-generated study plans in regional languages.'If you use any LLM directly, they are very general. They don't provide answers tailored to our students' syllabus, their level of understanding, or their language. That's why we use our open-source model, which we have fine-tuned with millions of data points derived from our syllabus to suit our students,' he said. The platform answers queries in both Hindi and Hinglish.Arivihan primarily caters to Class 12 students from tier II and tier III cities and rural areas, offering support for those preparing for State Board exams, CBSE, and NEET. 'We started with the class 12 State Board exam in Madhya Pradesh and received a great response. Then we launched for NEET and saw a similarly positive response,' Chandel said, adding that the company has now begun expanding to Rajasthan and plans to further expand to Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Chhattisgarh.The company plans to expand its academic team, bring on board experienced NEET faculty, and strengthen its workforce across product, marketing, and engineering roles. This comes amid a broader push by edtech startups to invest in AI, which is driving personalised learning, adaptive assessments, and automated content creation.'In FY25, we sold around 15,000 subscriptions, which generated a revenue of around Rs 3.25 crore…We are resolving a monthly query of around seven lakh with the help of AI with 97% accuracy,' Chandel added. This year, the startup is targeting between 80,000 and one lakh subscribers.
The company had earlier raised $750,000 in a previous round from Accel's seed-stage programme, Atoms. Commenting on the investment, Dhruv Gupta, investor at Prosus, said, 'At Prosus, we've been actively exploring breakthrough applications of AI across sectors, and education remains one of the most compelling frontiers.''Edtech in India has long struggled with cookie-cutter solutions and often unsustainable business models. The advent of GenAI changes both dramatically, which has been visible in Arivihan's traction and student outcomes so far,' said Anagh Prasad, investor at Accel. Elevate your knowledge and leadership skills at a cost cheaper than your daily tea. As rates slide, who will grab the savings pie? MFs, insurers?
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