English-learning app enguru raises undisclosed sum in pre-series A round

Live English-language learning app enguru has raised funding from institutional and individual investors including Potencia Ventures, Bisk Ventures, LetsVenture, Ronnie Screwvala and Arihant Patni. Existing investor Dell Foundation also participated in the pre-series A round for the Bangalore-based startup that provides live English classes for young adults and children through their Android apps. This is the first direct investment in India for US-based companies – impact investment firm Potencia Ventures and early-stage venture capital firm Bisk Ventures.

Phillip Schmidt has been appointed Director and Advisor. Schmidt was previously the Chief Investment & Strategy Officer at Babbel-one of the highest grossing language apps globally. enguru provides live classes that have grown 30 times since their launch in January 2020. The app currently has over 200,000 monthly live class sessions with more than 18,000 classes and 200+ teachers. The funds raised will be used to scale up the live class offering including the launch of a new enguru Kids app focused on conversational and reading classes for children from the ages of 6-16.

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enguru will also build on a range of new complementary offerings. These include the launch of personalised reading programs in partnership with Penguin Random House and the Upskill from Cambridge English Assessment created in partnership with Cambridge English. With such exciting projects in the pipeline, enguru hopes to continue to grow as a platform and cement its position as the largest live English learning app in India.

Speaking about the funding, Arshan Vakil, Founder & CEO of enguru, said, “We are very excited to have Potencia, Bisk, LetsVenture, Ronnie Screwvala & Arihant Patni join us in our journey to make high quality English training affordable and accessible across India. English is a pre-requisite for most jobs in the service industry and young Indians are very often at an unfair disadvantage due to a lack of access to effective training. enguru’s live classes give learners a platform to practice speaking in English through an unlimited subscription model.

It’s been tremendous to see our learners spending over 90 minutes a day over a sustained period of time. With these funds, we aim to bolster the technology in our live classes to facilitate peer to peer interactions more efficiently. We are also building complementary offerings to help our user’s boost their employability starting with the launch of an AI-based English Assessment called Upskill from Cambridge in collaboration with Cambridge English.”

Patrick Maloney, Investment Advisor of Potencia Ventures, said, “The enguru team has a deep understanding of the need for functional English training for aspiring youth in India. Their offering is tailor made for this requirement and the initial data indicates that they are onto something. We are excited to partner with them.”