Bengaluru-based extracurricular learning platform Upkraft has raised Rs 1.6 crore in a pre-seed funding spherical led by startup accelerator PedalStart.

The spherical included angel investors, entrepreneurs, operators and different members within the early-stage startup ecosystem.

Upkraft was co-founded in July 2025 by Tejasvi Singh Kushwah, Varun Mangal and Kritika Varandani. The startup supplies structured extracurricular studying via tutors at college students’ houses, residential communities and faculties.

Its platform combines verified tutors and standardised, level-based curricula with AI instruments supposed to personalise observe and provides dad and mom details about their kids’s progress.

Upkraft plans to make use of the funding to develop its AI merchandise, broaden its presence in Bengaluru and Gurugram, and strengthen its know-how platform, operations and buyer expertise.

Its deliberate merchandise embrace an AI Observe Companion providing personalised suggestions, clever observe monitoring, efficiency analytics and adaptive studying primarily based on college students’ progress.

Upkraft additionally plans to develop classroom-management and productiveness instruments for tutors, enhance progress dashboards for fogeys and broaden its curriculum throughout extracurricular topics.

“India’s extracurricular studying market stays extremely fragmented regardless of rising demand from dad and mom,” Kushwah mentioned.

He mentioned households confronted difficulties discovering trusted instructors, constant instructing requirements and dependable details about their kids’s progress.

Over the following 12 to 18 months, Upkraft plans to extend pupil enrolments, broaden additional in Bengaluru and Gurugram and enhance studying outcomes.

It additionally intends to strengthen its product and engineering, AI and knowledge science, gross sales and enterprise growth, advertising and marketing, buyer success, and tutor onboarding and operations groups.

PedalStart co-founders Manas Pal and Aditya Darolia mentioned Upkraft was working in a fragmented however high-demand space of India’s client schooling sector.

They mentioned the startup had demonstrated early traction via its hyperlocal, community-led mannequin and had centered on measurable studying outcomes and tutor productiveness.

PedalStart can be working with Upkraft on fundraising technique, investor introductions, enterprise planning, governance preparation and entry to its community of founders, operators and buyers.

Upkraft mentioned it deliberate to validate its enterprise mannequin at a bigger scale earlier than searching for institutional funding to help enlargement in India and abroad.