Tutoring platform Vedantu raises $11 million from Omidyar and Accel

Vedantu, an online tutoring platform, has announced that it has raised $11 million in its Series B funding round, which was led by Omidyar Network. Accel Partners, an existing investor in the company, also participating in this new funding round.

The startup will use the newly raised funding for technology expansion and deeper penetration in tier 2 and 3 cities. The technological development will aim to make the sessions more personalized. The platform will track aspects like a student’s attention span and concept understanding using machine learning, facial recognition, and others.

Siddharth Nautiyal, investment partner, Omidyar Network, in a statement:

The lowering data costs and availability of high-speed internet is making the online teaching model a reality. We are excited about our partnership with Vedantu as they build a solution for the next half billion Indians who are coming online for the first time.

Vedantu, which means ‘knowledge network’, was founded by Vamsi Krishna in 2014 along with Anand Prakash and Pulkit Jain. It is an online portal where teachers tutor students in a group and one-on-one sessions. An hour’s group session costs Rs 50-150 and a private session costs around Rs. 300 to Rs. 600.

The company says that the group sessions are doing very well in tier 2 and tier 3 cities, and thus the company plans to use the major amount of the newly raised funding for expanding in that market.

Currently, the platform is tutoring students from 6th to 12th grade, however, the company is planning to enter into exams categories like GMAT and GRE. The app is operational in 80 cities including Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Delhi with students from 36 countries and 1,200 cities.

Prior to this funding round, the Bangalore-based company had raised $5 million in its Series A round from Accel Partners and Tiger Global, that too within just 6 months of its launch. Vedantu is competing against other online education startups, including the Byju’s and Unacademy, which regularly raises funding to keep expanding operations.