YaKlass has secured $450,000 in a second round of financing in less than one year, the startup’s founder Valery Nikitin told Firrma.ru, an online publication covering the Russian startup and venture scene.
Two major venture funds, Almaz Capital and Vesna Investment, along with Russian businessman Pavel Kovsharov, brought in the funds, which will be spent on developing on B2C, B2G and retail sales.
YaKlass is aimed at the Russian market, providing users with theoretical content and allowing them to generate problems for students with different answers.
Based on Latvia-based Genexis Education, YaKlass generates different combinations of questions, so that every student has to complete a different task – which means that they cannot copy, notes RusBase, another specialized publication.
The service claims to offer already over 2 million unique variations and to be used by over 23,000 Russian school pupils.
Launched in March 2013, YaKlass secured a seed funding round two months later from Latvia’s Data Pro Group, Vesna Investment and entrepreneur Nikita Khalyavin.
The startup was then already valued at $2 million.
Several Russian e-learning startups have attracted venture funding over the past two years. Among them are Eduson, which launched internationally in April 2013 after receiving $1 million in funding, and BeSmart.net, which agreed a $4 million funding plan with a Hong Kong-based investment fund in late 2013. In 2012, Lingualeo and TeachBase raised $3 million and $300,000, respectively.
RusBase recently published an infographic report on the edutech sector in Russia, and is putting on a conference titled “EdTech Russia 2014 – Monetization of online education” on 20th March.
