Edu-tech startup FrontRow raises $3.2 million from VC firms

Frontrow
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The e-learning platforms are already scaling up in this pandemic. The online learning industry is certainly booming during Covid-19. Frontrow is an e-learning startup that emphasises more on inventive art forms and sports. The startup received their initial investment of  $ 3.2  million. The venture capital was raised by capital investors Deepika Padukone’s family office, Elevation Partners, and Lightspeed.

The education platform will compound its existing curriculum by adding more compartments with the raised fund. Frontrow certainly plans to burgeon its reach among the community and will dive deeper into diverse domains.

Frontrow is a newcomer to the industry, and was founded by Shubhadit Sharma, Ishaan Preet Singh, and Mikhil Raj. Ishaan was the former executive of Lightspeed. The startup is known for its curriculum of innovative arts and avocations, and was registered as Splashstar Technologies earlier this year. It delivers classes on varied fields covering a wide domain of art, music, sports, and some merged with communities involving learning activities. It also provides a flourishing environment by making users actively interested through healthy competitions. Its key element is its teachers or instructors that include celebrities in above mentioned fields.

The program started with the very first set of great personalities such as Divine and Gully Gang, Amit Trivedi and Neha Kakkar from music industry, Yuzvendra Chahal, Bhuvnesh Kumar, Suresh Raina from the cricket, and the virtuoso Biswa Kalyan Rath.

It is a unique idea, especially when the whole nation is going across Coding and Robotics. There is a dire need for unconventional learning in non-scholastic spheres. Ishaan, co-founder of FrontRow, realised this surge in demand in such fields. He predicts it to be a blooming industry with more than 26 million people investing in it.

FrontRow is based in Bengaluru and has a versatile and collaborative team of 20 members. The startup alleges to have a significant interest from more than thousands of users in their pre-launch among different community groups.

Shubhadit, another co-founder of FrontRow, emphasised over the role of fellows and mentors in our education. He further added how it gets more helpful especially in non-conventional domains of arts and sports. He said, “ Typically, these happen offline, on a cricket ground or in comedy clubs, but the vast majority of people don’t have access to these. In our communities, we see users from across the country, with massive pull from small-towns such as Shivpur, where a user actually set up their own comedy club.” 

The prescience of the startup is worth looking at, particularly in this age of technology when all topics boil down to online coding or the selfies and video games. The ultimate goal of the firm FrontRow is to increase accessibility and gain a large audience. For the same reason, Ishaan Preet Singh, co-founder of FrontRow, stated that it will be cost-effective and charge almost ₹500 to ₹2000.  The curriculum is designed after thorough inspection and scrutinising comprehensively with the eminent instructors. Apart from the coursework, equal importance is given the motion-picture while delivering the lectures, for providing a pleasing and affable learning experience.

The renowned actress Deepika Padukone felt the need to abridge the gap between academic and non-academic fields. She remarked that she was not totally invested in conventional curriculum in her childhood, and found herself more inclined in the non-conventional sphere of education.  She aligns with the ideology of the startup FrontRow, and admits the growing demand of such organisations to provide a platform of diverse fields to the society with proper mentorship. She further added that, “ I’m glad that this gap in education has now been identified, and I look forward to partnering with this dynamic team on what I believe is going to be an exciting journey ahead.”

Akshay Bhushan, one of the partners at Lightspeed, stated his belief on the potential of Frontrow and affirmed that it could bring a paradigm shift in the education process across the nation. Mayank Khanduja, one of the partners at Elevation Capital appreciated the foresight of the startup FrontRow for bringing an intuitive seed into the market. Mayank further added, “ Our past investments in the education, social and creator space such as Unacademy, Sharechat and CampK12 have made us extremely bullish on the opportunity to create large learning and community platforms in India.” His team realised the promising growth when they interacted with the early users of the firm FrontRow.