WizIQ, an online education platform which provides virtual classroom software for teachers and trainers at school and university level has raised a $4 million Series B round. The funding was led by Kaizen, an Indian private equity fund focused on the education sector. German-based global media company, Bertelsmann, also participated.
WizIQ said it will use the funding to bolster its position in the online education platform space — noting that, as part of the investment, authorSTREAM, an online platform for PowerPoint users to share presentation-based content, will merge into WizIQ, giving it a chance to reach authorSTREAM’s four million users — “a lot” of whom are apparently teachers, trainers and students. The company added that it would use the funding to improve its technology infrastructure and hire staff in product development and senior management positions.
WizIQ’s software — which works on PCs, iPads and Android tablets — has been used by more than 2.5 million students and more than 200,000 teachers in more than 100 countries to-date. The company claims to be growing revenues at an annual rate of more than 200 per cent. Colleges using WizIQ include IIT Delhi in India, Atlantic University in Virginia Beach and Des Moines Area Community Colleges in Iowa, U.S. Other WizIQ customers include tutoring companies, and educators in the MOOCs (massive open online courses) space.
WizIQ said it has raised $8 million in total funding to date.
WizIQ’s release follows below in full.
Online Education Platform WizIQ Raises $4 Million in Series B Investment
CHANDIGARH, INDIA–(Marketwire – Jan 24, 2013) – WizIQ, a leading online education platform that offers SaaS based virtual classroom software for teachers, trainers, colleges and universities, high schools, and training and tutoring centres around the world, announced that it has raised $4 million in Series B investment. The funding is led by Kaizen, India’s first education focused private equity fund along with Bertelsmann, the global media company based in Germany, whose core divisions encompass television, book publishing, magazine publishing and services in more than 50 countries.
The investment will bolster WizIQ’s position as a collaborative learning platform for teachers and students.
“WizIQ’s vision is to enable anyone to teach or learn anytime and anyplace. For the last five years, Educomp has supported us in moving closer to this vision, and now the new investment will take us to next level,” said Harman Singh, CEO and Founder, WizIQ. He added, “Building an online network of teachers and students and providing them with the right tools to interact online is necessary to make education accessible to everyone. The investment will help WizIQ build a better platform and infrastructure for online and blended education.”
Within a short span of time, WizIQ has been able to help over 2.5 million students learn and over 200,000 teachers teach online in more than 100 countries at a growing annual rate of over 200% revenues.
Winner of the ‘Best Virtual Classroom Provider‘ by the World Education Congress, WizIQ is now used for online teaching in colleges like IIT Delhi in India, Atlantic University in Virginia Beach and Des Moines Area Community Colleges in Iowa, USA, while being the virtual classroom software for tutoring companies like StudentNest in California, and TCY Online in India. Educators, like Dr Nellie Deutsch, are also using WizIQ to run high quality MOOCs.
WizIQ provides tools for teachers to deliver online education in online or blended learning formats, connect with students, share educational content, deliver live online classes and facilitate highly engaging learning experiences. WizIQ works on PCs, iPad and Android tablets; and can be customized for languages such as Arabic and Hebrew (right to left) and other 12 languages.
As a part of this investment, authorSTREAM, another online platform that PowerPoint users around the world use to share presentation based content, will merge into WizIQ. With 4 million users using authorSTREAM and a lot of them being teachers, trainers and students, this merger will help WizIQ reach out to a much larger audience than it could by itself.
About WizIQ
WizIQ is an online education platform that offers SaaS based virtual classroom software for teachers, trainers, colleges and universities, high schools, and training and tutoring centers. WizIQ has over 200,000 teachers and 2.5 million learners using the platform in more than 100 countries around the world. For more information, visit: www.wiziq.com