This Indian learning platform has closed down, after raising $4M in funding

Indian social learning platform bluelearn, which raised over $4 million since its launch more than three years ago, is shutting down its operations, citing its inability to build a venture-scale business.

Announcing the "hard decision" to shut down the 250,000 member-strong platform, co-founder Harish Uthayakumar, wrote on X that its mission was "to create an online university that levelled the playing field and allowed students studying in tier-2,3 colleges to access opportunities to learn, network, earn and get exposure similar to students at a BITS or an IIT."

However, he and his team realized "that building a venture-scale business with bluelearn was tough," and have now "made the hard decision to shut down bluelearn and return 70% of the capital we raised back to investors."

According to a message on bluelearn's website, the startup hopes that its members saw value through the platform whether through internships, projects, or learning.

Founded in August 2020 as a telegram channel for students to help each other with common questions, bluelearn helped thousands of students get internships, land jobs, start their own startups, and find co-founders from over 20 countries including the United States, the United Kingdom and Singapore.

The edtech platform joins the growing list of India-based startups that have shut down operations in the past year, including ByteDance's music streaming app Resso, crypto exchange OKX, Neobank Muvin, fintech startup GoldPe, social media platform Koo and AI-driven health startup Nintee, with some even returning investor's money.