CP VISWANATH
Founder, Karadi Path
Founder, Karadi Path
Using Folklore to Teach English
Channelising India’s folklore, Karadi Path aims to spread the reach of the English language to semi-urban and rural India.
An offshoot of publishing enterprise Karadi Tales, which was acquired by comic book publisher Amar Chitra Katha in 2008, the Chennai-based education-focused startup looks to teach students English within 72 to 84 hours.
Started by former Thermax employee CP Viswanath, the one-yearold venture has tied up with more than 200 schools in rural Tamil Nadu, and close to 50 schools in urban India. It expects to have a pan-India presence by 2014-15.
“The two primary factors behind Karadi Path are the aspiration levels of students in rural and semi-urban India, and the difficulty factor in learning English in those areas,” Viswanath says.
According to him, the company has evolved the methodology and process of learning English, by using the body, through music and dance. The Karadi Path method eschews the usage of text books, and works through songs that have been specially created and have a language learning structure embedded in them.
In April, social venture fund Aavishkaar invested 8 crore in the company, which will be largely used for organisational building, marketing and service delivery.
“Our plan, so far, is to have the next round of funding around end-2013,” Viswanath says. Karadi Path has projected revenue of 4.5 crore by the end of the current fiscal, and aims to touch revenue of 12 crore by financial year 2013-14.
It expects to post its first profit by that time as well.
Next on the agenda is building the company’s micro-tutor network, an after-school programme that is focused on training more than 2,000 tutors over the next five years, and delivering language services ranging from children to adults.
“We can have tutors who are in class XII. The idea is to build it along the lines of a microfinance company,” Viswanath says.
TIPS TO RAISE MONEY
Show how the company will scale, especially if it is a social venture.
Channelising India’s folklore, Karadi Path aims to spread the reach of the English language to semi-urban and rural India.
An offshoot of publishing enterprise Karadi Tales, which was acquired by comic book publisher Amar Chitra Katha in 2008, the Chennai-based education-focused startup looks to teach students English within 72 to 84 hours.
Started by former Thermax employee CP Viswanath, the one-yearold venture has tied up with more than 200 schools in rural Tamil Nadu, and close to 50 schools in urban India. It expects to have a pan-India presence by 2014-15.
“The two primary factors behind Karadi Path are the aspiration levels of students in rural and semi-urban India, and the difficulty factor in learning English in those areas,” Viswanath says.
According to him, the company has evolved the methodology and process of learning English, by using the body, through music and dance. The Karadi Path method eschews the usage of text books, and works through songs that have been specially created and have a language learning structure embedded in them.
In April, social venture fund Aavishkaar invested 8 crore in the company, which will be largely used for organisational building, marketing and service delivery.
“Our plan, so far, is to have the next round of funding around end-2013,” Viswanath says. Karadi Path has projected revenue of 4.5 crore by the end of the current fiscal, and aims to touch revenue of 12 crore by financial year 2013-14.
It expects to post its first profit by that time as well.
Next on the agenda is building the company’s micro-tutor network, an after-school programme that is focused on training more than 2,000 tutors over the next five years, and delivering language services ranging from children to adults.
“We can have tutors who are in class XII. The idea is to build it along the lines of a microfinance company,” Viswanath says.
TIPS TO RAISE MONEY
Show how the company will scale, especially if it is a social venture.
Create strong layers of management.
Try and attract the best professional talent possible.
Set targets and
meet them. Remember, VCs have operational timelines as well.
-Biswarup Gooptu ET120615
2 comments:
Very informative post especially for Social Entrepreneurs. Thanks for sharing Sir.
my pleasure, D
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