Nowadays, no kid stops with having just academic education. When you stop a kid nearby and ask if they learn anything other than studies, they will have a list of their favorite activities for you. Extracurricular learning provides for well-rounded education. The advent of pandemic had an unfavorable tailwind on the school children. Though these kids were able to cope up with their academic curriculum through online classes, they felt the pinch of missing their extracurricular classes.
Bengaluru and Singapore-based edtech startup Kyt aims to replace traditional offline extracurricular schools by offering private and group classes for children.
Kyt was founded by husband-wife duo Bhavik Rathod and Tripti Ahuja in June 2020 to run online-only extracurricular courses by combining live classes with video-based revision materials for children from ages 5 to 15 years, in a full stack model. Bhavik was a founding leader for Uber India and the Head of UberEats in India and South Asia. Tripti has spent 10 years designing customer experiences for major companies around the world, and an additional 5 years being part of founding teams at early-stage startups in India.
“Tripti and I started Kyt to build something for our daughter. After speaking to several parents, we realized that there is a much larger need to provide high quality courses that focus on the holistic and all-round development of the child, beyond just academics. With a strong team of curriculum designers, pedagogy experts, and education consultants, we embarked on this vision to build an online-first, global academy for extracurricular learning for kids.”
– Bhavik Rathod, Co-founder and CEO
With flexible private and small group sessions, the company offers courses across disciplines such as yoga, dance, music, chess, etc., to students around the world, breaking the geographical barriers. Kyt provides two learning opportunities — Kyt Academy and Kyt Workshop. The workshops are usually a day long, where students get to attend a class of their preferred activity – yoga, doodling, poetry and rap, among others. Long-term courses are offered for passionate learners. Most courses have three levels — beginner, intermediate, and advanced. On completion of their course, students receive a certificate of completion signed by the curriculum partners.
Kyt’s USP includes a proper mix of training, assessment, feedback, and encouragement. The startup has partnered with educators and artists from across the globe to provide quality content. Its curriculum partners include the likes of online world chess Olympiad Grandmaster Vidit Gujrathi, award-winning choreographer Ruel Varindani, celebrity yoga instructor Sabrina Merchant, and vocalists Kamakshi and Vishala. Kyt has a team of professional educators and curriculum designers who work with these celebrity curriculum partners to create the course.
Kyt acquired DIY.org early this year and their combined powers have allowed them to reach more kids, parents and teachers. They now operate an online learning community of kids and their families across 80+ countries – offering a wide selection of over 20+ courses (adding new every month), 2,500+ challenges and 1000s of videos across various topics. Kids can also attend Live Workshops (DIY LIVE).
Kyt has recently raised $5 million in a Series A funding round. The investment is led by Alpha Wave Incubation (AWI) and saw participation from Sequoia Capital India’s Surge, January Capital, Titan Capital and other angel investors. Kyt is the first Indian company to receive investment from Singapore-based January Capital. The startup intends to utilize the funds for improving their technology and product, for enhancing the overall experience of the students and also for accelerating global expansion.
“This new investment will greatly boost our efforts in providing a well-structured curriculum, designed by pedagogy experts and education consultants to help each child realize their potential.”
– Bhavik Rathod, Co-founder and CEO
The startup has plans to expand its operations to Abu Dhabi and use the Emirate as its regional headquarters for targeting the GCC, MENA and other global markets. It will also build a world-class team of data scientists, product managers and engineers located in Abu Dhabi.
By 2026, the global e-learning market is expected to grow exponentially to reach over $370 billion. Kyt is progressing in favorite winds on its mission to build a world-class online-first, global academy for extracurricular learning.