India-based math EdTech firm Bhanzu, founded by the world’s fastest ‘human calculator’, is planning to expand into Southeast Asia and Middle East as it aims to eradicate math phobia among students in these regions, its founder said.
“Bhanzu has successfully started catering to students in India and the response has been phenomenal, which has encouraged us to start offering our live math classes in Southeast Asia and Middle-East,” Bhanzu Founder Neelakantha Bhanu told TechNode Global in an interview.
“Bhanzu has taught 30,000 students. While the majority of them are from India, we have started onboarding students from Southeast Asia, and the numbers are growing exponentially,” he said.
He said the firm currently provides live classes in English. Moving ahead, Bhanzu has plans to have localization as one of its primary agendas, where students can better connect with teachers.
“Relevance can be increased by a notch above when it is localized, as barriers are broken even further. Bhanzu is committed to exploring pathways to adopting the curriculum in local languages,” he added.
Bhanzu will start working on creating an in-classroom gaming experience with live feedback and evaluation and setting up near-live session experiences for asynchronous learning. The company also plans on promoting math as a competitive sport through booster courses and mini-games series for self-paced learning engagement, Bhanu said.
Bhanu, who gained fame for holding four World Records for being the fastest human calculator in the world, founded Bhanzu in 2020.
In September this year, Bhanzu has raised $15 million in Series A funding led by global investment firm Eight Roads Ventures. Another global investor B Capital, also invested in the round from its Ascent Fund.
In a separate interview, B Capital Partner Karan Mohla noted that in India, there are approximately 300 million K-12 (from kindergarten to 12th grade) students and an estimated 30-40 percent of the students develop a fear of mathematics early on.
“This only becomes worse with time with 60 percent of students in classes 7-10 reporting math anxiety. A recent national survey which evaluated students of grades 3, 5 and 8 across the country, found that approximately 40 percent in grade 8 were proficient in mathematics with only 10.5 percent displaying any advanced skills. The problem is further exacerbated by the lack of good quality teachers leading to insufficient personalized attention to each student,” he told TechNode Global.
Bhanzu is building a platform to address these challenges using their proprietary curriculum and pedagogy, which has been designed by the founder.
“The company is addressing these critical gaps in the market with a fresh approach focused on strengthening the basics first before aligning the curriculum with necessary subjects from the school syllabus. We are bullish on the opportunity given the deep-rooted and structural challenges with math learning,” Mohla added.
In the interview, Bhanu also elaborates on its plans after raising funds and the firm’s ambition in the longer term. He, however, declined to comment on the company’s financials and fundraising plans.
Below is the edited excerpt:
Would like to know more about Bhanzu’s expansion. Which are the countries and markets it is prioritizing and why? Any concrete plan yet? Is there a need to localize the curriculum/content of the courses?
Bhanzu has successfully started catering to students in India and the response has been phenomenal, which has encouraged us to start offering our live math classes in Southeast Asia and Middle-East.
We currently provide Bhanzu’s live classes in English. Moving ahead, Bhanzu has plans to have
localization as one of its primary agendas, where students can better connect with teachers. Relevance can be increased by a notch above when it is localized, as barriers are broken even further. Bhanzu is committed to explore pathways to adopting the curriculum in local languages.
How many students Bhanzu has at the moment? what is the geographical breakdown? Will Bhanzu continue to focus on India market?
Bhanzu has taught 30,000 students. While the majority of them are from India, we have started onboarding students from Southeast Asia, and the numbers are growing exponentially. Since India is our home turf, it remains as an important country where we would want to expand. However, Bhanzu is also working on onboarding leaders and executioners who have prior expertise in business expansion in Southeast Asia. We have spent 4+ years creating a robust math curriculum, which I’m sure is getting global recognition as it solves a problem every child in the world faces – the fear of math.
Bhanzu’s online live classes will hence be launched in Southeast Asia and focus towards contextualizing math learning for students across the world. Bhanzu’s curriculum focuses on building confidence in students by making them 4 times quicker and better at calculations, making them ready to ace the curriculum in school and apply math in the world around them.
What’s the company’s immediate plan with the fund raised?
The company wants to be known as a global leader in math learning. We want Bhanzu to be a synonym of math. This is the north star which we want to chase.
With that being said, the majority of our funds will be utillized to accelerate its hiring extensively for highly-specialised tech and product teams, who will contribute to expanding learning curves for students and making math learning highly engaging and interactive.
Bhanzu aims to establish itself as the world’s most thought-through math curriculum. With the current funding, Bhanzu is majorly focused on expanding its business globally across multiple geographies across the world. Bhanzu also plans to enhance the tech infrastructure to create an extraordinary user experience, increase the workforce, and strengthen the curriculum with more thought-provoking courses and content.
Furthermore, Bhanzu will start working on creating an in-classroom gaming experience with live feedback and evaluation and setting up near-live session experiences for asynchronous learning. The product team is also working on building a real-time teacher aid for regular student performance analysis.
Bhanzu also plans on promoting math as a competitive sport through booster courses and mini-games series for self-paced learning engagement.
What are the opportunities Bhanzu sees in operating a math learning platform and edtech? Would Bhanzu consider other subjects as well? Why or why not?
Three out of every four students in the world face math phobia. It is a huge problem, which not only discourages students from studying math but also makes them disinterested in taking up Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields as careers.
There is a huge potential for transforming students’ lives – by making them fall in love with math. Math is intertwined with cognitive development and has significant relevance with STEM fields.
It is a well-known fact that the outcome of math skills translating to academic success and eventually in building STEM competence is widely accepted, and people across geographies resonate with this.
We are people who constantly learn from how students learn and adapt accordingly and that’s how our current products are formulated in the first place. We have plenty of room to innovate and provide an unprecedented learning experience to students.
Currently Bhanzu has plans to become the world leader in math. And it is on its way to build the world’s most thought-through math curriculum.
What are the challenges Bhanzu face and how to overcome them?
Bhanzu wishes to explore teacher talent pool with local language proficiency, as we eventually want to provide our curriculum in local languages, as we believe our math curriculum coupled with local language can create an impactful learning journey.
Having talented leaders who have a holistic understanding of user behaviour is something which would mould the outlook that we have towards Singaporean students and educational communities. Strategising and formulating the right kind of playbook is imperative for us to explore these geographies in a deeper sense and provide an unprecedented student experience.
How will global investor like B Capital can help Bhanzu apart from funding?
The experience that they carry with them in supporting businesses and witnessing them flourish always gives us plenty of confidence. Also, raising with a VC like B Capital enables us to quickly scale in global markets without deviating from our core principles.
India’s Bhanzu secures $15M Series A funding led by Eight Roads Ventures