MAM
Edtech startup Creative Galileo raises $7.5 million in Series A funding
Mumbai: Early learning ed-tech platform Creative Galileo has raised $7.5 million in a Series A funding round from Kalaari Capital, Affirma Capital, East Ventures, Valiant Employee Investment Fund, and angel investors. This brings Creative Galileo’s total funding to $10 million, including a pre-series A round of $2.5 million announced in October last year.
Creative Galileo offers a curriculum for children through narratives, gamified content, interactive learning journeys, and detailed parent updates.
The company will use the newly infused funds to scale up, accelerate hiring across the teams in multiple geographies, introduce regional languages and further strengthen the research and development of the platform.
Creative Galileo was founded in July 2020 by Prerna A Jhunjhunwala and co-founded by Nikhil Naik, ex-Vuclip. As the country’s first-of-its-kind character-based early learning platform for kids aged 3–10, Creative Galileo claims to be the only early learning app to be ranked in the top 20 education apps in the Play Store, India. The company has forged over 20 partnerships with the country’s top content studios in just over a year. With plans to expand in Southeast Asia, Creative Galileo recently started its foray with international alliances such as EBS Korea, an educational content specialist broadcasting company.
Creative Galileo founder Prerna A Jhunjhunwala said, “We are excited to bring our new partners on board. In the last year, we have successfully built and provided millions of children access to high-quality content in our Digital and Educational Equality mission. We want to enable bespoke learning for children across the globe through their favorite characters to strengthen their foundation during their early years, which will also help develop and strengthen critical thinking, confidence, cognitive skills, and emotional intelligence.”
“Our soon-to-be “multilingual” platform will become the largest universe of kids’ character-driven learning platforms with a curriculum designed by experts to meet the foundational learning requirements,” she added.
Kalaari Capital MD Vani Kola said, “We are excited to strengthen our partnership with Prerna and Nikhil as they continue their journey of transforming learning experiences for children across the globe. In the last six months, they have achieved strong growth with low marketing spend. Creative Galileo has also consistently ranked among the top 20 educational apps in India’s play store—the only early learning app to achieve this distinction. This is a testament to the founders’ relentless focus and strong execution.”
“We are glad to welcome Creative Galileo into East Ventures’ network and support them in strengthening the education ecosystem in the region. We believe the approach of Creative Galileo will provide fun and exciting learning experiences, and we are looking forward to experiencing more innovation from the team,” said East Ventures managing partner Koh Wai Kit.
HolonIQ recently listed Creative Galileo on their annual list of the 100 most promising EdTech start-ups from India & South Asia.
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Abhay Duggal joins JioStar as director of Hindi GEC ad sales
The streaming giant brings in a seasoned revenue hand as the battle for Hindi television advertising heats up
MUMBAI: Abhay Duggal has a new desk, and JioStar has a new weapon. The media and entertainment veteran has joined JioStar as director of entertainment ad sales for Hindi general entertainment channels, adding 17 years of hard-won revenue experience to one of India’s most powerful broadcasting operations.
Duggal is no stranger to big portfolios or bruising markets. Before joining JioStar, he spent a brief stint at Republic World as deputy general manager and north regional head for ad sales. Before that, he put in three years at Enterr10 Television, where he ran the north region for Dangal TV and Dangal 2, two of India’s leading free-to-air Hindi channels. The north alone accounted for more than 50 per cent of total channel revenue on his watch, a number that tends to get attention in any sales meeting.
His longest stint was at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, where he spent over six years rising to associate director of sales. There he commanded the Hindi movies cluster across seven channels, owned more than half of north India’s revenue across flagship properties including Zee TV and &TV, and closed marquee sponsorships across the Indian Premier League, Zee Rishtey Awards and Dance India Dance. He also handled monetisation for the English movies and entertainment cluster and the global news channel WION, a portfolio that would stretch most sales teams twice his size.
Earlier in his career Duggal closed what was then a Rs 3 crore single deal at Reliance Broadcast Network, one of the largest in Indian radio at the time, before that he helped launch and monetise JAINHITS, India’s first HITS-based cable and satellite platform.
His edge, by his own account, lies in marrying data and instinct: translating audience trends, inventory signals and client demands into long-term partnerships built on cost-per-rating-point discipline rather than short-term deal chasing. In a media landscape being reshaped by streaming, fragmented attention and AI-driven advertising, that kind of rigour is increasingly rare and increasingly valuable.
JioStar, which blends the scale of Reliance’s Jio platform with the content firepower of Star, is doubling down on its advertising business at precisely the moment the Hindi GEC market is getting more competitive. Bringing in someone who has spent nearly two decades doing exactly this, across some of India’s most watched channels, is a pointed statement of intent. Duggal has spent his career turning audiences into revenue. JioStar is clearly betting he can do it again, and bigger.
