Online coding platform for kids, CuriousJr, has raised USD 1 million in its seed funding round. The round was led by WaterBridge Ventures, alongside Enzia Ventures, and angel investors. Participating angel investors include Aditya Shankar (Co-Founder, Doubtnut), Tanushree Nagori (Co-Founder, Doubtnut), Abhinav Sinha (COO, OYO), Mohammed Wassem (Founder, EasyEat) and Shashank Shekhar (Director- Content Strategy & Operations at ShareChat).

Co-founded by IIT-BHU alumni – Amit Shekhar, Janishar Ali, and Mridul Ranjan Sahu CuriousJr is mobile-first, focused on students between the ages 8 and 17 years with vernacular usability. The platform helps students learn coding with the help of bite-sized content, test their knowledge in a practice arena, and publish their creations on the CuriousJr app store, which they can then share with friends, family and the larger community.

According to the company’s press release, CuriousJr will utilise the seed funds raised to further refine the product and create an engaging learning ecosystem for the students. Along with this, they will also focus on community development, expanding their team, and creating more appealing and engaging content for their users.

Mridul Ranjan Sahu says, “We started CuriousJr to make coding education accessible to everyone, but then we realised that 88% of the K-12 users in India do not have access to a PC/laptop. That’s why we focused on building India’s First Mobile-Based Code Learning Platform for K12 in vernacular languages. We believe that learning in one’s mother tongue empowers young students to think and harness their coding skills more effectively to become excellent coders for tomorrow.”

Amit Shekhar adds, “More than 60% of new jobs will require tech skills, and no traditional education system can serve this scale. CuriousJr is the solution.”

Nilesh Balakrishnan, AVP at WaterBridge Ventures, states, “Coding is quickly evolving into the de facto measure of student success in India. As tech continues to revolutionize the Indian experience, parents have shifted their focus from Maths/STEM subjects to Computer Science focused expertise. We believe CuriousJr’s mobile product innovation and gamified learning outcomes can democratize coding for millions of young coders across the country.”

Namita Dalmia, partner at Enzia Ventures, says, “In edtech, coding for kids is seeing great traction, especially with successes like WhiteHat Jr, and the National Education Policy’s recognition of coding as an important skill for kids to learn. CuriousJr is disruptive and its unique mobile-first learning experience is democratizing learning. The founders bring complementary expertise and are also self-taught exceptional coders. Less than a year old,

CuriousJr is already demonstrating high traction and user engagement. At Enzia, we see a lot of promise in their vision and technique, and are excited to be partnering with them.”

While talking about the progress Janishar Ali said, “Kids have created more than 75K apps and games on CuriousJr, and We look forward to taking this to 1 million within the next 1 year”.

Also read: Coding helps children to work and understand technology around them