INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Vedantu, a Bangalore-based startup that operates an online tutoring service, today announced it has raised $42 million as it races to expand
its reach in the nation where tens of millions of students enter formal education and prepare for undergraduate-level competitive exams each
year.The Series C financing round for the five-year-old startup was led by Tiger Global and WestBridge Capital, with existing investors
Accel, Omidyar India and TAL Education and Vedantu co-founders also participating
The startup has raised $58 million to date.Vedantu offers a mix of recorded and live and interactive courses
Students who have enrolled for the interactive sessions are required to answer questions every few minutes by tapping on their smartphone
They also can raise their doubts at the end of the session.The startup, which serves students aged between 12 to 18 (serving students in
grade 6 to 12), offers a large catalog of recorded sessions at no charge to users
It generates revenue from selling subscriptions to live and interactive sessions, Vamsi Krishna, co-founder and CEO of the startup, told
TechCrunch in an interview.The cost of these subscriptions can vary from Rs 100 ($1.4) for students looking for sessions around a particular
topic, to Rs 50,000 ($700) for long-term courses that focus on training students for undergraduate-level courses, Krishna explained.More
than 1.5 million students consume educational videos on Vedantu each month, of which 30,000 are paying subscribers
The platform has amassed users from more than 30 nations, mostly those of Indian diaspora.As part of the offering, Vedantu also tracks how
much time a student takes in answering questions to determine the topics that they might be struggling to grasp
It then challenges students to solve more problems from those topics and alerts the teachers and their assistants to follow up, Krishna
said.Additionally, teachers take frequent breaks to check with students if they understood the topic
If a substantial number of students say they have doubts, teachers share more examples to explain the subject again.Students also get to
interact with teachers throughout the session via chat and their microphones
Krishna said these offerings are necessary to better coach students
It also differentiates Vedantu from other edtech startups in India.Before starting Vedantu, Krishna, who is a teacher himself, ran Lakshya
Institute, which helped students prepare for undergraduate-level courses until early 2014, before selling a majority stake to Mumbai-based
K-12 tutoring and test preparation firm MT Educare.From right to left: Vamsi Krishna, CEO and co-founder; Anand Prakash, co-founder; and
offerings, and find more customers
Because Vedantu does not rely on previously recorded footage, scaling it could prove challenging.The startup is not looking to aggressively
expand its courses and its current live format will enable it to allocate more students in a session, Krishna said.Vedantu competes with a
ballooning close to $6 billion
12, in addition to those preparing for competitive undergraduate-level courses.Unacademy, another edtech startup in India, has amassed over
10,000 registered educators and 13 million learners
It recently raised a $50 million round.India has the largest population in the world in the age bracket of 5 to 24 years
