KidsBuddy, an Indian EdTech start-up, launched its operations in the GCC through a fund-raising campaign at the Expo 2020, that promises to change the learning system for more than 250 million K12 students currently enrolled into Indian school curricula across the world.

The number of enrolled students in government schools in India was 131 million while the privately managed schools had 119 million enrolled students before the COVID-19 pandemic. The Indian schooling system is one of the largest in the world and caters to over 250 million students, according to reports.

KidsBuddy launched its campaign in the GCC region through Annual Investment Meeting (AIM) Startup Conference concluded on March 31 at the Dubai Expo 2020. It was among the few start-ups selected from India to demonstrate business model at the AIM Start-up. KidsBuddy is now ready to serve 16.3 million K12 students in the GCC, along with the 250 million students in India.

The education market value in India is expected to grow from US$101.1 billion in 2019 to US$225 billion in 2025, according to reports. In the Union Budget 2021-22, the Government of India allocated more than Rs54,000 crores or US$7.53 billion for the Department of School Education and literacy – which reflects the size of the industry.

KidsBuddy currently seeking to raise funds in the UAE and Gulf where a large number of Indians students pursue their education, to increase its market share. The innovative learning modules pursued by KidsBuddy is in line with the Indian Government’s plans and changes the way children learn in school.

“The K-12 model is among those revolutions that the Indian education system has broadly accepted and made it compulsory to adopt for both private and government schools. In K-12, there is a lot of teacher-student interaction where the teacher encourages a lot of question-answer sessions, assignments to promote advance learning habits in students,” according to a report by India Brand Equity Forum (IBEF)

“This education system supports individual attention. This method is more into developing the self-educating capabilities of students. Here the students are encouraged to add value to their assignments in the form of personal views and ideas that makes this system more beneficial than the conventional education systems. Students are also open to taking participating in various discussion clubs and forums to present their ideas and views.”

The two-year-old app, KidsBuddy, was established in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic by the Co-Founders Sareesh Polassery and Ranjith Kodungallur of Indbytes Technologies Private Ltd, will be now serving the students in the UAE market. The application serves 10,000+ International Curriculum-based guided activities in a Play-based approach. The application is serving 12000+ customers and has a 4.8 Google review rating.

Sareesh Polassery, Co-Founder of KidsBuddy, says, “We have changed the entire learning system practiced by the schools under the Indian curricula and made it more modern, scientific and practical assignment-based – moving away from rote learning – as per the vision of the Indian Government and in line with the best international practices.

“Each and every parent nowadays are worried about the education for their child. Kidsbuddy is going
to help the parents to give the better education to their children. In the KidsBuddy application, there is a classroom which has a mixture of students with different academic performance levels. Not only that
the students who are excellent in extracurricular activities can get benefited by this application.

“KidsBuddy focuses a lot on extra-curricular activities and help nurture the creative side in each student – so that they can develop a better understanding of the subjects.”

KidsBuddy is a free mobile application specially designed for the children to nourish their better future and also for society. It helps the children to learn through fun and follow the international syllabus (Cambridge). Apart from academic activities, it encourages children to improve their extra-curricular activities like music, dance craft, and sports. It provides daily activities for children, and by performing these tasks they can discover, experiment, and learn independently. These actions will help them to learn without any boredom from the traditional learning system.

The launch of KidsBuddy in the region comes as the Education Technology (EdTech) market in the Middle East and Africa are expected to reach US$7 billion by 2027, due to the adoption of technology solutions and products in classrooms by schools across the region. The worldwide EdTech market size was valued at $254.80 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $605.40 billion by 2027, according to Research and Markets, a market intelligence provider.

“As a relatively new app, we are still at a developing phase and looking for potential investors. We are
really glad to launch our start-up in the EdTech market of GCC. At the Expo 2020, we got a chance to
meet up with many international investors, and these future investments will help us to develop and grow internationally,” Sareesh Polassery said.

KidsBuddy has already won many accolades so far, which includes 8th position in the ‘Kerala Startup Innovation drive 2021-2022’ competition, among a total of 185 startups, were Kerala, India government granted Rs 700,000 (US$10,000) to KidsBuddy.

KidsBuddy has been certified by a UK-based company ‘Educational App Store’. This is an independent company and they have validated KidsBuddy content with their professionally experienced teachers and awarded 5-star rating certificate to KidsBuddy.

Developed by groups of doctors, child psychologists, teachers, software engineers, and parents, KidsBuddy is a mobile application platform specially designed for children to nourish academic knowledge and extracurricular activities.

Co – founder of KidsBuddy, Mr Ranjith Kodungallur, said, “Our team is now open to make a strong
database of UAE schools and academies to reach the potential customers.

KidsBuddy has mainly two apps, KidsBuddy Smiley (B2C) and KidsBuddy Academia B2B). KidsBuddy Smiley’s been used by 13,000 students, 200+ schools, and in 12 countries for child development.

KidsBuddy is going to be a boon for all the parents who are struggling to engage their children with some brain development and extracurricular activities. It promotes learning through games and activities and encourages pen n paper activities. It is targeted at children belonging to the age group from 4 to 12 years. KidsBuddy smiley’s been used by 13,000 students, 200+ schools, and in 12 countries.

KidsBuddy Smiley is available on all platforms such as laptops, tablets and mobile (Web applications, Apple iOS, and Android devices).