Kafqa Academy raises $1.3 million from marquee investors

Kafqa Academy has secured $1.3 million in pre-launch funding from leading institutional investors and tech entrepreneurs. The funding round was led by Global Founders Capital and saw participation from institutional investors such as Enzia Ventures and Better Capital. Angel investors who participated in the round include Kunal Shah, Founder and CEO of CRED; Ashish Hemrajani and Parikshit Dar, Founders of BookMyShow; Umang and Virendra Gupta, Founders of Josh and Daily Hunt; Vikram Chopra, Founder & CEO of Cars24; Kumar Aakash, SVP at Hotstar;  and Alex Beygelman, SVP at Bukukas.

The Bengaluru-based performing arts academy aims to serve artists from their first step to their success on the largest stages in the world. Kafqa Academy offers high-quality learning experiences which are accessible and convenient. The aim is to create a community of 50 million active learners.

Shariq Plasticwala, Founder, Kafqa Academy, said performing arts has been his passion for years now. “We started Kafqa Academy with a mission to expand the learning of the performing arts and enable artists. We think of ourselves as an intersection of the arts and technology world. We have launched our online classes in dance, music and speech & drama. We are examining every part of the learning experience and innovating using technology to make it better for our students. We are excited by the feedback from our initial student base and look forward to serving millions of students through our fast-scaling platform.”

Plasticwala said the investment has allowed Kafqa Academy to invest into technology and content development – accelerating experience and growth. The Academy focuses on outcome-based learning with performances and certification at the end of every course. Instructors at Kafqa Academy are hand-picked with a selection rate of <2% of all applications received. Additionally, Kafqa Academy trains instructors on delivering online classes & invests in their capability building. The Academy caters to the rising demand of performing arts by offering online classes with a structured curriculum leveraging technology to create simple trial, payment and credit experiences, offering revision and practice tools and digital performances. Live support is offered & a dedicated instructor success team focuses on identifying opportunities that make instructors successful.

The market opportunity is significant – performing arts learning consisting of dance, music, speech and drama, fine arts & cooking is worth $3B in India and is growing fast to reach $8-10B in seven years.  Furthermore, the academy is also looking to cater to the rising demand for Indian art forms from outside India, which coincides with the rise of India’s global stature in recent decades, with its cultural assets like arts, heritage and more, becoming a subject of aspiration and admiration by the global community.

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Shariq Plasticwala’s expertise and proven track record of building technology-enabled customer experience and marketplaces from the ground up and his experience with performing arts has attracted notable investment and strong talent to Kafqa Academy, leading to a unique mix of performing arts experts and technology talent with significant experience. The Kafqa Academy team has scaled fast to 100+ (includes 50 instructors) and comprises expert artists as instructors and ex-founders in product and technology roles.

With proprietary back-end infrastructure and database, standardized courses, performance opportunities for its learners, Kafqa Academy is poised to serve students and artists, reimagining the performing arts sector valued at around $3 Billion in India (expected to grow to $8-10 Billion by 2027) and $20 Billion+ globally (expected to grow to $40 Billion by 2027).