- Habitat’s social learning app for UPSC aspirants has 10,000+ subscribers and 200,000+ conversations
- Unitus makes its second investment in edtech this year
Bengaluru, December 1st: Habitat, the interactive social learning edtech platform for civil service aspirants, raises INR 5 crores in seed funding from Unitus Ventures and Whiteboard Capital. The platform caters to the government-exam sector with a deep focus on the civil service exams conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) in which about 1.5 million aspirants compete for 1,000 seats.
“The future of learning is co-creation,” asserts Rohit Pande, CEO, Habitat. “Habitat puts forth a communication-first pedagogy and centralises all learning activities like discussions, clearing doubts, study-plan iterations, on-demand lectures, notes sharing and assessments. Think of an organised cluster of Whatsapp or Telegram groups with your chosen mentor creating lectures on the go with you. That’s the learning “habitat” for you. It’s 10 times better than the one-size-fits-all videos or live classes with no real-time feedback.
At Habitat, students are empowered to select their mentors, peer groups and course speed. You chat, create, bookmark and make notes on the go. That’s deep, personalised learning.
He adds, “The funds raised will be utilised for tech development and team strengthening. We also aim to introduce other languages on the platform in addition to Hindi and English used at present. We are creating a communication-first paradigm in both arts and science, and our focus is on building a superior product that delivers desired outcomes for our users.”
Will Poole, Managing Partner, Unitus Ventures, emphasises, “Edtech is a burgeoning sector, with mobile-first learning leading the growth. Habitat engages learners like no other, producing measurable outcomes that play a profound role in motivating competitive aspirants. We are excited for the future this sector is bringing in, and are pleased to support innovative edtech solutions like Habitat that keep up with the ever-evolving learning patterns.”
Launched in 2016 by IIT friends Rohit Pande, co-founder and CEO, and Shikhar Sachan co-founder and CPTO, Habitat addresses the gaps in enabling social learning for UPSC aspirants.
A great amount of learning happens even outside the traditional classrooms, with students interacting among themselves and with teachers to exchange tips and ideas.
Taking this interactive ecosystem to a virtual and tech-assisted platform, Habitat facilitates an effective learning system driven by mentors and students. Currently, Habitat serves information-heavy exam segments (UPSC, State PCS, RBI, etc.) using machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP) for interactive learning. Habitat also has plans to foray into the concept-heavy competitive exam segment – JEE, PMT and others. Habitat’s collaborative and social platform of a communication-first pedagogy will play a significant role in redefining how students prepare for these exams.
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About Habitat
Habitat flips the learning pedagogy from content first to communications first. Habitat has built a live and active community for the IAS aspirants and has about 10,000+ subscribers and 200,000+ conversations. With Habitat, chat rooms are the new classrooms. Based on students’ learning style and stage of preparation, Habitat allows them to select their mentors and participate in live discussions with peers. More about Habitat: https://habitat.club/home
About Unitus Ventures
Unitus Ventures is the leading venture fund in India that supports early-stage fintech, healthcare, and jobtech startups with India scale and global potential. Launched in 2012, Unitus Ventures is a founding member of Capria Network, the leading global network of emerging market fund managers collaborating to deliver superior returns and scaled impact. Unitus Ventures is based in Bangalore and Seattle. More about: https://unitus.vc and http://capria.vc/network
