Hippocampus Raises $1.5 Million From Unitus Seed Fund
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Bangalore: Hippocampus that runs a book council to help children, parents, schools and libraries choose books; have raised $1.5 million from Unitus Seed Fund along with several other investors. Unitus Seed Fund is new seed stage venture fund that invests in Indian startup businesses with potential for large-scale poverty impact. Hippocampus has raised a round of angel investment in 2010 to the tune of $400,000. Bangalore based Hippocampus Learning Centres (HLC) establishes learning centres in villages offering preschool and after school programs to age groups from three to ten years with the aim of improving a child's capacity to learn and do better in school. HLC intends to make these ongoing sustainable community enterprises and also achieve financial sustainability as an organization. Umesh Malhotra, Founder and CEO, Hippocampus, says, "We intend to reach out to 500 villages with the fund raised. We shall employee more than 2000 people as teachers and reach out to 40,000 children in the next two years with the help of the fund." Malhotra is a serial entrepreneur. He was selected an Ashoka fellow in 2008. Malhotra also runs a chain of restaurants in Bangalore, and sits on the advisory board of Dream-a-dream. Prior to this, he co-founded Bangalore Labs in 1999. He started his career with Infosys Technologies and holds a graduate degree from IIT-Madras. Commenting on the interest of the investor, he adds, "Many firms investing in our project are excited about the potential of making an impact on BOP children learning in their formative learning years- pre-school through fifth level. We have succeeded in creating a sustainable model, at both community level and organizational level, and has large scale impact potential. The possibility that education services for BOP can be delivered sustainable rather on charitable subsidy excites them immensely." He also thinks that the strong team of HCL which has disciplined approach with focus on results and outcomes verses simply doing good is also an important factor in influencing the investors. With a head count of over 100 employees, HCL is positioning itself as an affordable education service provider for the 100 million children staying in rural India. Unitus Seed Fund is a seed stage venture investor in businesses which impact poverty. It makes small equity investments and provides support to the social entrepreneurs to expand beyond their initial pilot to refine their business model and operations understanding to prepare for significant future growth and impact.

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