Following the exit of cofounder and former-Twitter India head Manish Maheshwari, Invact Metaversity plans to re-launch its course in 6-8 weeks under the leadership of founder Tanay Pratap.
Pratap left his job at Microsoft in 2021 and started Invact Metaversity along with Maheshwari. However, a difference in vision between the two co-founders led to Maheshwari exiting the company, last month. The company also had to cancel its first batch and lay off about 20 employees.
Pratap’s journey as an online educator started in 2019 with the launch of his Youtube channel, followed by the launch of a six- months upskilling course neoG Camp in 2020. Pratap’s YouTube channel currently has 37,900 subscribers. Talking about the re-launch, Pratap said, “the cohort, course and metaverse learning medium will largely remain the same. There will be changes in terms of pricing, as we want to make the course more accessible. We are also working on making it more industry focus, so the course might lose some pieces.”
He added that Invact is geared towards solving the education problem instead of just being a SaaS or metaverse company. “People want the right kind of solutions and not tech software. Software is easy to write but solutions are hard. This vision was always there and that’s where the communication differences happened. ,” he said.
Not to hire more
In terms of team, the company will not hire more people and will continue to run its operation with about 10 employees who were retained. Invact had retained parts of admission, partnerships, community, marketing and tech team.
The company’s product and teaching material are mostly ready and the team is now working towards polishing certain pieces to restart the process. Pratap is now a majority shareholder in Invact after Maheshwari’s exit. Commenting on whether Invact will look at onboarding a new co-founder, he said while it is not on Invact’s immediate plan of action, adding a new co-founder down the line remains a possibility.
“It is a big mission to help crores of people get upward mobility through Invact. We have to grow tremendously from where we are,” he added.
In February, the start-up raised $5 million at a valuation of $33 million from global investment firms such as Arkam Ventures, Antler India, Picus Capital, M Venture Partners, BECO Capital and 2am VC, among others.