Vedantu raises $100 million, 28th unicorn in 2021

CHENNAI: Edtech platform

Vedantu

has become the 28th Indian unicorn in 2021 and the fifth edtech unicorn as the company raised $100 million in a series-E round that valued it at over $1 billion.

The funding round was led by Singapore-based impact investing fund ABC World Asia, and also saw existing investors Coatue,

Tiger Global

, GGV Capital, Westbridge, among others.

The startup, which offers individual and group classes across K-12 and test preparation segments, was valued at a post-money valuation of around $600 million in funding round last year.

The company has reached the unicorn status amid speculations that it was in talks with edtech leader Byju’s for a sale, a claim that was strongly denied by Vedantu.

Vedantu co-founder Vamsi Krishna denied any discussions with Byju’s for a sale and said that the founding team’s long journey in the education and technology space was an indication of the impact they wished to create as a company.

“We have been capital efficient and our annualised revenue run rate is at around $65 million — up almost 3x from last year,” Krishna said.

The company intends to use the funds to innovate further on the live teaching format and penetrate deeper in the K-12 segment by reaching more students.

It is bullish on international opportunities and is also likely to explore a B2B vertical to engage more deeply with schools as the education sector undergoes massive digitisation. It will also strengthen product engineering functions. Vedantu says it was the first company to offer live online classes as early as 2014 and counts various first-time innovations to its name including its proprietary live teaching platform Wave and the 2-teacher model. Vedantu offers tutoring courses to K-12 students as well as preparation of competitive exams such as IIT-JEE, NEET, commerce, CBSE and ICSE.

Each month, over 35 million users access Vedantu through its app and web for free. Its YouTube channel gets 65 million views.

Students also access Vedantu through its dedicated Channels on Airtel TV and TATA Sky. Vedantu claims to have catered to over 2 lakh paying students last year — a 300% growth over the previous year.


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