A clutch of angel investors has committed to invest Rs 2 crore in the education start-up Stones2Milestones (S2M) which is aimed at creating reading habit among school going children in the age group of 3-9 years.
“We have got commitments of Rs 2 crore angel of which the first tranche of Rs 1 crore has already come into the company. Between March-June 2017 we are expecting to close our Series A round of anywhere between $3-5 million,” said Kavish, Co-Founder & CEO of S2M, who left his cushy job as an investment banker to float the start-up.
The start-up was floated in December 2008. In the initial years it was involved in several areas including improving science learning, higher order of thinking and communication skills, whole school transformation, leadership development at schools and a reading skill and will building programme, explained Kavish.
S2M experimented with various delivery models from after school learning centers to a publishing business to in-school curriculum integration and running schools under Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT). “These experiments led us to finally set the organisation on its mission of creating a nation of readers in October 2015,” he added.
Since English is a major international language, the ability to read fluently in English is a life skill that is crucial to academic success and to participate in the global arena. However, for several reasons, Indian children are trailing behind in ability to read and comprehend English and we can no longer ignore the research.
“Our goal is to change this even for children in non-English environments. We want to make learning to read a conscious design of curriculum. The focus is on enabling the skill to make reading easy and also on developing the will to make reading enjoyable,” he added.
As the window for this intervention is from age 3 to age 9, S2M integrates this programme with the early school curriculum. Besides providing this to schools, S2M also equip the parents to support this growth in their children.
Currently S2M has tied up with 21 schools to reach out to 4,500 children. “Our aim is to reach out to about a million children through a network of 2,500 schools in next three years. We would also push the parent app model from next year,” said Kavish.
The start-up also has plans to take its work globally to other non- English speaking countries and take charge of public and school libraries to bring life back into them.
Source: The Economic Times
