With COVID-19 changing the way students learn, the Indian online education sector has seen an unprecedented, exorbitant bloom ever since the country went into lockdown. The sector has continued to invite mass investments from around the world. And adding to that, Vedantu, the online tutoring platform, is announcing its Series D funding round, having acquired $100 million at a $600 million valuation.
The round was led by U.S. based Coatue, along with other existing investors. Rahul Kishore, Managing Director, Coatue will also join Vedantu’s board. CEO and co founder Vamsi Krishna suggests that the capital will be used to add more categories to the platform, and provide more content for students, who have been at the mercy of online teaching for months now.
With this round, the company has doubled the total investment poured into it, having acquired $200 million in its lifetime. The round comes just a few months after its Series C funding round, where Vedantu raised $24 million at a $275 million valuation. This means that not only has the company doubled its investments, it has also doubled its valuation, in just 5 months, a testament to the exponential growth in India’s online education market.
The online education space is among those rare areas, wherein companies have seen unprecedented growth. Indian online tutoring market, with one of the largest education markets to address, has never seen a bloom like this. Vedantu claims that it has witnessed a 220% growth ever since the lockdown settled in, and now caters to more than 2 million students . The platform, that only served students from classes 6th to 12th earlier, has now added content for 1st to 5th grade as well.
The platform provides free education to users throughout the country, with the option to upgrade to a premium version for exclusive content.
Industry giants like the $10.5 billion worth Byju’s and Unacademy are also gearing up for the fight of their lives, raising capital and performing acquisitions to see who will come out at the top by the end of this growth period. Unacademy acquired Prepladder, another online learning platform for $50 million just a few days back, while Byju’s is planning to acquire Doubtnut.
Even the richest man in the country, Mukesh Ambani, realises the potential of online learning, and has made an education push in the country by announcing various new products at yesterday’s AGM. By launching platforms like Embibe and Jiomeet, and introducing ground breaking technologies like JioGlass, the 6th richest man in the world might just steal away the limelight from all the industry giants.
