February 21
Ex-Twitter India head Manish Maheshwari’s start-up Invact Metaversity has raised a $5 million seed round from a clutch of global investors.
These investors include Arkam Ventures, Antler India, Picus Capital (Germany), M Venture Partners (Singapore), BECO Capital (Dubai) and 2am VC (USA). Founded by Maheshwari and Tanay Pratap, Invact Metaversity is a platform built at the intersection of education and Web3.
The company provides employability-focused training to help the workforce realign with the digital world and secure themselves jobs in high-growth tech companies. The university is being built in the metaverse in order to foster an immersive, serendipitous environment conducive to learning.
In addition to this, the startup has also raised capital from over 70 notable individuals such as Balaji Srinivasan (former CTO of Coinbase and GP at Andreessen Horowitz), Caesar Sengupta (former VP and General Manager of Payments & the Next Billion Users initiative at Google), Nithin Kamath (founder, Zerodha), Kunal Bahl (founder, Snapdeal), Benjamin Ampen (Managing Director Twitter MENA) and influencer Gregory Orosz (author of ‘The Pragmatic Engineer’), Punit Soni (former CPO of Flipkart and Founder of Suki) and Akshay Kothari (Notion).
Concept at a cusp
Commenting on the development, Manish Maheshwari, Founder & CEO at Invact said, “Metaverse is a concept that stands at a cusp where it will be a lead factor in transforming the educational landscape. We will use this investment to bolster the product and technology team for the Metaversity platform, build a virtual-first curriculum and expand into Europe and the US.”
“I’ve always believed that education, rather than being a privilege, should be a right. Our vision at Metaversity is not only to democratise education but also to provide high-quality learning at an affordable cost. I am grateful that such well-known names are helping us on our journey“, added Tanay Pratap, Founder & CTO.
Real time experience in virtual world
Invact Metaversity aims to make education more accessible and inclusive, providing the real-time experience of attending a university in a virtual world. With emphasis on creating a social and community layer, the platform is built to help give students a real university feel in the virtual world like entering a classroom, hanging out with peers at the campus, and more.
“We are excited to be one of the first believers in Manish and Tanay’s vision. We believe it is time for a new generation of edtech platforms built in India for the world, and especially ones that will offer life-altering outcomes through upskilling and premium employability with a superior pedagogical approach. We also believe such platforms will harness the power of Web3 and the metaverse to create entirely new interactions and truly global communities,” added Nitin Sharma, Partner and co-founder at Antler India.
“Edtech and Web3 are both areas we have invested in for a long time, and in Manish and Tanay, we found a team with huge followings, and proven track records of building scaled communities, products and businesses,” added Sharma.