Hippocampus to raise $6 m by June

Hippocampus Learning Centres (HLC), which provides high quality preschool education to children in rural India at affordable costs, is looking at raising $6 million by June this year.

Founded by Umesh Malhotra, ex-Infosian, has so far raised over Rs 23 crore since 2010. Last time, it raised a total of Rs 17.25 crore from Asian Development Bank, Unitus Seed Fund and Khosla Impact Fund in 2014.

Speaking to Deccan Herald, Umesh Malhotra, Founder CEO, HLC said, “We are adding 50 new centres of our own this year. We will also be using the ‘Franchisee’ route of expansion this year and look to add 50 franchisees this year. The investment in a centre is Rs 2 lakh, and the return on investment happens by three years.”

HLC currently runs 285 pre-schools with 231 own, six franchisee schools and 48 partner schools, mainly in Karnataka and Maharashtra. “Now we are keen on expanding our operations in Maharashtra by opening centres in Nagpur Sangli and Kolpaur,” he added.

Sharing details about HLC, Malhotra noted that it currently employs 650+ educated women in rural India as teachers and provides education to 11,000 preschoolers (between age group of 3-6 years).  He said that from the current academic year starting from June 2016, HLC will add 4,000 new children to its preschool education.  HLC will also increase the teachers’ strength to 1,000 by June 2016. “This year we have forayed into K12 schools (kindergarten (K) and the 1st through the 12th grade (1-12)). Currently, we run four such schools in rural Bengaluru.”

HLC operates in villages with a population of 5,000-25,000 people. The fees charged by HLC are in the range of Rs 3,000 to Rs 6,000 per year. Commenting on the future plans, he said that HLC is planning to next roll out in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Tamil Nadu before venturing nationally. While HLC is operationally profitable, it has ambitious goals of eventually running 15,000 centres. HLC has set a goal of ‘Mission Finland’– to provide by 2020, high quality education to 200,000 preschool children at 1% of the cost.