Unitus Seed Fund, one of India’s leading venture seed funds supporting startups innovating for the masses, announced that it has led the seed round investment in LabInApp, a Hubli-based education startup. LabInApp is a company on a mission to revolutionize science learning through 3-dimensional virtual graphics. Their real-time computer graphics technology helps students to interact, visualize and explore science. Other investors in this round include Madan Padaki led Sylvant Advisors and angel investor Subhash Reddy (former e4e).
In India, 75% schools lack proper science laboratory facilities and most schools catering to BoP lack access to good quality science teachers. Students are thus unable to understand the basics of science that involves experimentation. As part of the curriculum, schools have experiments for physics, chemistry and biology, but most often these are done in groups and the time spent for each experiment by the student is very little leaving limited ability to tweak and learn. LabInApp addresses this gap, and enables the student to experiment directly with each concept without the need for a physical setup.
LabInApp is a 3D, interactive virtual laboratory tool that focuses on heuristic approach of understanding science. This heuristic ideology allows students and teachers to perform science experiments on computers or mobile devices, and eliminates the physical barriers of an actual laboratory. LabInApp’s real-time 3D computer graphics technology promotes “learn by doing” pedagogy. This improves students’ conceptual realization and arouses curiosity by its playful learning environment.
So far, LabInApp has successfully enrolled 35 institutions to use their 3D services in their science laboratories. These institutions are located in Tier II cities like Hubli, Dharwad, Davangere and Gulabarga. They are covering XI and XII standards for CBSE and Karnataka Board. They cover Physics and Biology subjects and have more than 100 science experiments.
LabInApp was co-founded by Pavan Shinde, Girish Shirigannavar, Pramod Ramdurg and Vinayak Hulabutti bringing experience in technology and implementation. They have also worked together on the IDH (Indian Digital Heritage) project where they generated 3D models of Hampi monuments using Microsoft Kinect sensor and rendering it by GPU.
“We are currently focusing on secondary school (CBSE), physics & biology subject lab experiments. The scope of this segment is huge since there are more than fifteen thousand such schools in India & abroad” said Pavan Shinde, Co-Founder and CEO at LabInApp. “With the support of Unitus Seed Fund and Sylvant, and little modification in the current product we can even serve state boards and ICSE syllabus”.
“We are excited about how Pavan and the team at LabInApp are solving a specific, but large problem through technology – which makes it scalable & profitable” commented Anand Sudarshan, Founder & Director of Sylvant Advisors. “We are also delighted to see the ecosystem coming together to help entrepreneurs succeed – LabInApp came through TiE Bangalore where Pavan & team had participated in TiE EduThon (an education startup event). They subsequently applied for StartEdu, a competition by Unitus Seed Fund & Sylvant Advisors, got mentored by the team at Sylvant and went on to win the StartEdu competition – and now this investment by Unitus Seed Fund!” he added.
After the mega success of two Edutech competitions, Unitus Seed Fund now launches StartEdu3, a nationwide program looking to identify, mentor, incubate, and invest in the most promising early-stage education startups. Participants for the competition will be selected by incubators participating in Unitus’ Speed2Seed Program. Education-focused business accelerator Sylvant is a co-convener of the competition, a preferred provider of expert mentoring and incubation services for participants in the competition, and is a founding member of Unitus’ Speed2Seed Program. StartEdu3 winner will receive 5 lakh cash prize; they and runner-up will pitch to Unitus Seed Fund for INR 1 Crore Seed Investment.
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