Vedantu Gets $100 Million Funding, Becomes India's Fifth EdTech To Enter Unicorn Club

New Delhi: Online tutoring platform Vedantu on Wednesday said that it has raised $100 million in 'Series E' round led by Singapore-based impact investing fund ABC World Asia. With the funding, Vedantu has now entered into the country's unicorn club with a "valuation of $1 billion". The Bengaluru-headquartered company is the fifth EdTech (educational technology) platform to achieve this feat after Byju's, Unacademy, Eruditus and upGrad. In startup terms, a unicorn is a company which is valued above $1 billion.

'Series E' implies that a company has, at a given point, gone through many funding rounds.

Vedantu said the funding round also saw strong participation from existing investors – Coatue, Tiger Global, GGV Capital, Westbridge among others. It added that this "underlines its status as the largest K-12 (from kindergarten to the 12th grade) LIVE online tutoring company in India."

The online platform said it "has continued to be a pioneer in India's K-12 tutoring space with several first-time innovations that include WAVE, its proprietary LIVE teaching platform, and the 2-teacher model."

Vamsi Krishna, CEO, and Co-Founder, Vedantu said, "Back in 2014, when we held our first LIVE class, nobody believed this would work. It is super satisfying to see this format becoming mainstream and Vedantu leading the way in innovative online delivery experiences. We will continue to innovate to reach as many students as possible and create 10x better experiences and outcomes for every child at Vedantu."
 
Sugandhi Matta, Chief Impact Officer, ABC World Asia, said, "Vedantu embodies our investment themes of providing better access to quality education and using digital technology to improve lives and livelihoods. With EdTech experiencing meteoric growth in India, Vedantu as the pioneer and category creator in LIVE online tutoring is driving the tectonic shift towards online learning."

Vedantu also said that the "latest funding round will close over the next few weeks, with more investors joining in subsequent tranches." The Rainmaker Group acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Vedantu on their fundraising, the EdTech platform further mentioned.

Vedantu currently offers tutoring courses to young students (3 to 18-year old), preparation for competitive exams such as IIT-JEE, NEET, Commerce, CBSE, ICSE, and state exams such as Maharashtra boards. SuperKids is its newest offering which offers extracurricular classes like English speaking, reading, and coding courses.