The previous year has been extremely challenging for the world. The pandemic has therefore led to several changes and made everyone adapt to the new normal. However, the edtech sector has clearly boomed in the past year and a chunk of investors have put faith in its bright future. Although the edtech sector has been existing for many years, 2020 has been a transformational year for it. Not just students, the edtech apps are widely used by the teachers and parents as well.
Listed below are some edtech platforms that recently raised funds.
- Byju’s: It is an Indian educational technology app that provides personalized learning with engaging video lessons and comprehensive tutoring programs. They recently raised $200 million in January 2021 from an American investment firm BlackRock and T. Rowe Price which has lifted the valuation of the firm to $12 billion. Even during the pandemic Byju’s was actively hiring employees to expand their business even more. It has been backed by some renowned investors like Chan Zuckerberg, Sequoia, Bond and many more that have helped it raise over $2.3 billion in over 18 rounds of funding.
- Brainly: This online learning platform, uniting over 350 million students, parents, and teachers every month, with over 55 million users from India alone. Brainly has recently raised $80 million in a Series D round led by Learn Capital with participation from Prosus Ventures and General Catalyst Partners, bringing its total funding up to $150 million. Its existing investors Runa Capital and MantaRay also joined the round. Brainly plans to use the funds to expand its product portfolio across India, and strengthen its presence in high-growth markets like Brazil and Indonesia.
- Unacademy: Unacademy is a five-year-old Bangalore-based startup that offers lessons for competitive exam preparations. The firm has raised $2 billion from Tiger Global and Dragoneer Investment Group in November 2020. It has renowned celebrities and brands as its investors like Sachin Tendulkar, Nexus Venture Partners, General Atlantic, and Dragoneer Investment Group. The organization claims to have about 350k paying subscribers and 40 million users. In 2020, the firm had recorded a 4x increase in their revenue from INR 21.8 cr in 2019 to 86 cr in 2020.
- Quizizz: Bengaluru-based edtech startup Quizizz has users in more than 150 countries and has witnessed a 30 percent increase in its monthly active users from last year. It has raised about $12.5 million by Eight Roads Venture in Series A funding. The brand in itself is associated with investors like GSV Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners, Prime Venture Partners and many more. The company raised funds to accelerate the growth of international users and to expand its team to sustain the school and corporate customers.
- Doubnut: Doubtnut, founded in July 2016 is an online interactive tutoring app that serves with instant video solutions from experts for any doubts that students face. The startup recently raised INR 224 Crores from SIG and Lupa Systems in Series B funding to expand in more languages and subjects and come up with new paid courses. It offers solutions to 65 million questions monthly in nine different languages and has about 2.5 million daily active users.
