Live online tutoring platform Vedantu has raised $100 million as part of its Series D round, led by US based investment firm Coatue with participation from existing investors. Rahul Kishore, Managing Director, Coatue, will join Vedantu's board.

This is Vedantu’s third round of funding in the last 12 months, taking its total fund raise to over $200 million. With this round, Vedantu’s valuation jumps to $600 million from $275 million after its Series C fund raise, making it the second most valued company in the Indian edtech space after Byju’s, which is valued at a whopping $10.5 billion. Unacademy, valued at $510 million, is third in the pecking order.

The Rainmaker Group acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Vedantu on their fundraising.

"Vedantu has always believed in the concept of live interactive classes being a superior format for online learning which creates greater learning outcomes. During the lockdown, everyone is talking about live classes and it is the best time for us to drive more adoption and strengthen our brand as the best destination for live classes. On top of adding new categories, we will use the funds to invest into content and technology to create the world’s best live teaching-learning experience,” Vamsi Krishna, CEO and co-founder of Vedantu, told BusinessLine .

Founded in 2014, Vedantu claims it was the first company to start live interactive teaching in the country in the K-12 online tutoring space. It offers live interactive classes to students across grades K1-12, for all major boards and top competitive exams like JEE and NEET.

Lockdown-led growth

During the lockdown, Vedantu recorded a growth of 220 per cent with more than 2 million students attending classes and teachers delivering 8 million plus hours of live classes. From 150,000 students in January 2020, today 1 million plus students study every month on the platform and more than 25 million users every month from 1,000+ cities and 40+ countries access free content, tests, doubts, videos on Vedantu's platform, and its channels on YouTube. Ninety per cent of the users are from India and the rest are NRIs, said the company.

Krishna said the number of paid users on Vedantu is set to grow 10X this year, from 50,000 last year.

During the pandemic, Vedantu entered the early learner segment with the launch of its coding programme for 6-12-year-olds, called Vedantu SuperKids. The company has plans of launching more programmes in this category.

Coatue’s Kishore said: "Online learning adoption in India is at an all-time high, setting a new benchmark for the rest of the world. As we continue to focus on driving high-growth ventures, our investment in Vedantu marks our entry into the Indian edtech market. This move underlines our strategy to partner with companies that are strategically positioned for high growth and scale. We are excited to partner Vedantu in their next stage of growth.”

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