Tiger Global, Westbridge lead $42 mn Series C in edtech platform Vedantu

Bengaluru-based online tutoring startup Vedantu has raised $42 million in a Series C round led by existing investor Tiger Global and new investor Westbridge Capital, the company said in a statement.

Vedantu Innovations, which operates the venture, also saw participation from existing investors Accel, Omidyar Network India and Beijing-based TAL Education.

Prince Maximilian, chief executive officer of Liechtenstein-based asset management firm LGT Group and part of the Liechtenstein royalty, also participated in the round.

The founders of Vedantu also participated in the funding, the statement added.

“We will use this funding towards boosting our technology, content capabilities and to build the brand and expand our services for learners across India,” Vamsi Krishna, co-founder and chief executive officer, Vedantu said.

The latest round of funding comes around eight months after Vedantu raised $11 million in a Series B funding round led by impact investment firm Omidyar Network.

The latest round also takes the total funding raised by the company to nearly $60 million as per data available with VCCEdge, the data and financial research platform of Mosaic Digital, the parent of TechCircle.

Vedantu was founded in 2011 by Krishna, Anand Prakash, Saurabh Saxena and Pulkit Jain. Its online platform allows interaction between students and tutors via a whiteboard, audio and video environment.

The company offers one-year courses for Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) students in classes 6 to 12. Subjects offered include math, physics, chemistry and biology.

For students in classes 11 to 12, Vedantu also offers courses on engineering and medical entrance exams.

Vedantu operates on a freemium model where students can use content free as well as through via payment depending on the access level.

“Traditionally, students have utilised online learning as an afterthought to other forms of academic preparation. At Vedantu, we want to turn this around and make live classes a genuine alternative to offline coaching and tuition classes. Today, 30% of our students are using Vedantu as their only source of learning and this is just the beginning,” Krishna said.

With more than 500 tutors on its network, Vedantu claims to have users across more than 1,000 cities from 30 countries across the globe accessing its free content. 

The eight-year-old firm, which claims to have conducted 1.2 million hours of live online tutoring till date, claims to impart learning to around 150,000 students every month.