India-focused edtech firm eyes SEA entry after bagging $2.5m from Kalaari Capital

Creative Galileo, a Singapore-based edtech startup focused on India, has raised US$2.5 million in a round led by Kalaari Capital. Several angel investors also joined the round, such as Harish Bahl, founder of Smile Group; Shashin Shah, managing partner at Think Investments; and Ashwin Puri former managing director of Facebook for the Asia-Pacific region.

Creative Galileo co-founders Nikhil Naik (left) and Prerna Jhunjhunwala / Photo credit: Creative Galileo

Founded by Prerna Jhunjhunwala and Nikhil Naik in 2020, Creative Galileo’s main product is Kids Early Learning App, which is aimed at children aged three to 10. It provides videos and games aimed at social learning and teaching kids about numbers, language, and arts.

Since launching in July 2020, the app has been downloaded over 4 million times and has gained 500,000 monthly active users, mostly from India. Around 10% of those downloads come from other markets such as Nepal, Bangladesh, United Arab Emirates, and the US.

Creative Galileo plans to expand to Southeast Asia and integrate local languages such as Bahasa Indonesian and Bahasa Malaysian into the app. It’s targeting to get 10 million downloads across all markets in the next 14 months.

Read also: Why Southeast Asia’s edtech sector is in a class of its own?

The company is also looking to use the fresh funds to hire more employees, produce more content, and build more partnerships with animation houses. Creative Galileo is already working with kids’ content studios such as Big Animation and Toonz Animation to enrich its offerings.