Gray Matters India Pvt.Ltd (GMI), an organization that has been incubated and co-funded by Atlanta-based Gray Matters Capital(GMC), announced today an INR 45 million equity investment from Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, a philanthropicorganization focused on improving the lives of impoverished children in the United States, South Africa and India. GMI focuses onimproving the quality of education in schools through assessments, and educational analytics, and their rating tool provides high quality and relevant learning level assessments by leveraging strong partnerships with organizations like ACER, the leading Australian assessment agency.
“We are excited about this support from the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation to help us increase the role of assessments and analytics in K12 education and to help improve educational quality by making data actionable to schools. The confidence shown by the Dell family foundation, which believes in measuring educational quality through outcomes, will further augment our efforts in this direction.” said Pradeep Sharma, Country Director of GMI. The company aspires to impact more than 5,000 schools, 2 million students and 100,000 teachers in the next 5 years.
“Assessments and school ratings are a big unmet need of schools that target low-income communities , and this is a great opportunity for GMI to create industry suitable assessments and a marketof quality conscious schools in this segment.”said Prachi Windlass, Lead, Education, at the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation. “GMI has a strong management teamwith a good mix of corporate, development and education backgrounds, and a deep commitment to creating sustainable social impact.”
Since 2006, the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation hasinvested more than $120 million in transforming the lives of children living in urban poverty in India. The foundation has been a strong proponent of rigorous learning level assessments in all its education programs, and also supports the implementation of the Indian government’s Continuous and Comprehensive evaluation policy in four states. This investment will complement the foundation’s broader role incatalyzing the learning assessment area in India by extending the coverage to include the growing and increasingly important affordable private school sector.
“We are very excited to have the support of the Michael &Susan Dell foundation in improving the quality of affordable education in India,” said Calvin Clark, Finance manager at GMC. “With this support, GMI will be able to address more of the need for quality assessments in the affordable education sector.” This investment complementsGMC and GMC founder Bob Pattillo’sother education investments in India including Indian School Finance Company and Sudiksha Knowledge Solutions. GMC and its sister investment funds have made more thantwo dozen impact investments in India totaling over $30 million.
About GMI
Gray Matters India(GMI) works towards improving education quality in schools through school assessments and analytics. GMI has worked with more than 600 schools in the past 3 years and has impacted more than 300,000 students and 15,000 teachers. GMI believes in the power of data driven decision making and aims at providing schools with actionable data analysis post assessments to help in school improvement. For more information, please visit www.graymatters.in
About the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation
The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation (www.msdf.org) is dedicated to improving the lives of children living in urban poverty around the world. With offices in Austin, TX and New Delhi, India, and Cape Town, South Africa, the Dell family foundation funds programs that foster high-quality public education and childhood health, and improve the economic stability of families living in poverty. The foundation has committed more than $1 billion to global children’s issues and community initiatives to date.
About GMC
Gray Matters Capital (GMC) is a private operating foundation founded by Bob Pattillo. GMC actively invests in and co-creates initiatives with partners to build sustainable, replicable business models to benefit underserved populations. Our Vision: An education and a job for 100 million women by 2036.
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