NIIT invests in classteacher.com

BANGALORE: In its first venture funding in the country, NIIT has announced
that it is picking up stake in classteacher.com, an Internet-based communication
and learning solution for schools. The investment figures, however, were not
revealed.

Classteacher.com has been founded by three young ex-IITians, Rohit Pande,
Sameer Buti and Apoorv Misra. Rohit Pande, CEO, is an alumnus of IIM Calcutta
and has three years of consulting experience with Andersen Consulting. A gold
medallist in finance and marketing from XLRI, Sameer Buti has worked with ICICI
and Citibank. Apoorv Misra has five years of experience in the IT sector
spanning Web and telephony technologies.

According to a release, classteacher.com has been developed based on the
concept of Internet driven virtual schools, which will provide futuristic
learning tools to students, teachers and parents. Classteacher.com works in
partnership with schools to provide a personalized learning module tailor-made
for school children. The objective is to provide stimulating ways of learning
for the children and also a steady feedback on their individual learning graph
for parents and teachers, the release added.

NIIT will make available its expertise in technology and content creation to
classteacher.com. NIIT is the first big investor in the site and the funds
provided will go into content creation, infrastructure development and marketing
and advertising.

"We found a potentially valuable and viable business proposition for the
school community in classteacher.com. In a clutter of education portals,
classteacher has a compelling customer acquisition and revenue model, which
would set it apart from competition. In fact, it is a second generation site
with real revenues," said NIIT senior vice president R Venkatesh Iyer.

"NIIT’s investment in classteacher.com will provide strategic value
for NIIT’s K-12 Brick & Mortar LEDA Family Clubs. We will gain valuable
experience in creating Web-enabled content for the K-12 segment. This tie-up
will help us take a big step in leveraging Internet as a delivery mechanism for
K-12 segment," Mr Iyer said.