India's VC-backed Vedantu raises $42m Series C

Existing investors Omidyar Network – which led the company’s $11 million Series B round last year – and Accel Partners also participated in the round, along with LGT Group and China-based education technology developer TAL Education.

Vedantu was founded in 2011 and provides a live online tutoring platform that allows students to select from a pool of teachers for live interactive tutoring sessions designed to be more engaging than passively consumed video content. The company offers both one-on-one and group classes, where multiple users can join a session with a single teacher, with services optimized for low-bandwidth areas.

Classes offered by Vedantu cover grades six through 12, including math, science, social studies, and English, and incorporating global academic standards such as CBSE, ISCE, and IB. It claims its free content is accessed by 15 million users per month, with 150,000 users taking part in paid live tutoring sessions that comprise the company’s primary revenue stream.

Vedantu aims to be seen as a primary source of learning for its students, rather than a supplement to traditional offline education. The company faces competition from several start-ups with a similar goal, most notably Byju’s, a tutorial app developer that has raised significant funding from international investors.

“Our product is our core differentiator, where we offer a full-stack solution with a better quality teacher at affordable prices,” said Vamsi Krishna, co-founder and CEO of Vedantu, in a statement. “We will use this funding towards boosting our technology and content capabilities and to build the brand and expand our services for learners across India.”

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Technology
• Consumer
• Expansion
• India
• TMT
• Education
• Growth capital
• Tiger Global Management
• WestBridge Capital Partners
• Accel Partners
• LGT Capital Partners