Edtech Venture Bluelearn Announces Shutdown, To Reimburse 70% of Investors' Money

Bluelearn, an upskilling and job-finding platform backed by Elevation Capital, will shut down operations. Confirming the development in an X post, Bluelearn’s co-founder Harish Uthayakumar said the company will reimburse its investors for 70% of their invested funds.

“We realised that building a venture-scale business with Bluelearn was tough. We had been very conservative with capital, allowing us to return 70% of the capital we raised back to investors," Uthayakumar wrote.

He stated in the post that Bluelearn had assisted hundreds of students in starting their businesses, finding co-founders and landing internships and jobs.

“I’d encourage more people to start up and build in India, for India and for the world. We need more people to take risks and try out ideas that seem absurd," Uthayakumar stated.

Established in 2021 by BITS Pilani Goa alumnus, Harish Uthayakumar and Shreyans Sancheti, the platform’s objective was to assist Tier II and III college students in connecting with professionals in the field, learning new skills and building their network.

The company started as a Telegram channel. Later, its reach grew to over 250,000 members from over 20 countries, including the US, the UK and Singapore, making it, in his words, the largest student community in India.

Uthayakumar expressed his doubts about Bluelearn’s potential to grow into a sizable company, capable of making substantial profits in a YouTube video.

The Bengaluru-based ed-tech company raised $4 million in funding from investors like Tital Capital, 100x VC, Elevation Capital, and Lightspeed. Bluelearn’s angel investors included Pixxel founder Awais Ahmed and Meesho’s Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal.

The ed-tech segment in India has been going through a rough phase with big players including Byju’s and Unacademy taking up hard measures like layoffs and realigning business strategies.

Once valued as India’s biggest startup with a valuation of over $22 billion, Byju’s has failed to sustain business growth during the COVID-19 pandemic. The company is now contending with several bankruptcy cases in India and abroad.