Kruu is teaching a lesson in holistic learning

Chennai-based Kruu is an EdTech platform founded by Anil Srinivasan. It connects students in Classes 6-12 with world-class professors and industry experts from both India and global universities. As of now, Kruu has reached over 450,000 students across more than 500 schools, spanning CBSE, IB and IGCSE institutions. The company is present across 100-plus locations in India, with a growing presence in the Middle East, East Africa and East Asia as well.

Srinivasan is also the founder of the Rhapsody Music Foundation. Rhapsody focuses on early childhood education, from kindergarten through Class 5. It uses music and visual art to teach science and maths. The purpose of art integration is not to teach art; it is to make the child a holistic learner. By the time a child moves to middle school and starts working on project-based problems through Kruu, the mind is already seeded with alternative thinking.

The purpose of education should be to train learners to be creative. “If, at the end of an educational journey, I have lost my ability to be creative, I have not been educated at all. To survive in this uncertain world, where technology can replace jobs, I must be creative, agile, curious, adaptive and collaborative. Education should build these qualities. Students must start creating their own opportunities,” explains Srinivasan.

“There are over 30,000 professors of Indian origin in North America alone. We exported our brains to the world. I want to bring that knowledge back – not physically, but through networks and technology – so that even a child on any street in India, as long as they have curiosity and motivation, can gain access to the best minds in the world.

“If I tell you a professor from the University of Toronto is giving you a problem to solve, your curiosity is naturally piqued. We use that aspiration to create genuine engagement with learning. Kruu wants to create a nation of job creators, not job seekers.”

Talking about revenue and funding, Srinivasan says Kruu turned profitable in its second year of operations. “This year, we are looking to hit approximately $2 million in annualised revenue, around Rs18-20 crore. Next year, my target for the team is Rs40 crore.

“To date, Kruu has raised about $1.5 million, roughly Rs15-16 crore, beginning with friends and family and subsequently bringing in more serial investors. Girish Mathrubootham and Ashwin Damera are among those who have invested. Notably, about 90 per cent of our capital comes from entrepreneurs themselves: people who have built unconventional ventures and therefore genuinely understand what we are doing.

“Kruu is planning to raise $5 million in the next round to hire senior leadership, expand the team and protect our first-mover advantage in what is becoming a high-attention space.”

The road ahead

Kruu has lined up several projects, including what it calls ‘College in the Cloud’, a project-based learning initiative for college students. The company is also building ‘Invested’, an incubation and funding arm within Kruu, where final-year college students can test entrepreneurial ideas through project-based learning and, if the idea shows promise, Kruu connects them with funders.

“When you speak to principals, they virtually agree that education needs to change and that experiential learning is necessary. But when it comes to implementation, when you ask how exactly they are going to do it, the burden of incumbency takes over.

“It is not that they do not want to change. They are simply overburdened. So, the gap is between consensus and compulsion: they want to do it, but they are not sure how. That is precisely where we try to help; we make it plug-and-play. We do the thinking, we bring the value – all the school has to do is facilitate delivery,” elaborates Rahul Ramachandram, Director, Marketing & Partnerships, Kruu, while discussing the challenges of convincing schools.

“What Kruu does, and what excites me about being associated with this journey, is that school students get the opportunity to discover who they are, what they are good at, and what genuinely excites them, through experiential learning and exposure to institutions of real standing. It builds the child as an individual, not just as a student. And importantly, it addresses the needs of parents and teachers too, not just students.

“The work has just started, and I genuinely believe the best is ahead,” says SV Krishnamurthy, Serial Entrepreneur, Advisor and Mentor, Independent Director, and Chairman of the Board, Kruu, confidently.