Source: Edtechreview
‘Vidya’, 'Shiksha’, or as you call it ‘Education’, are the terms we are encountering since childhood, and are aware of the important role it has.
“The main hope of a nation lies in the proper education of its youth”
- Erasmus
Read the above quote?
I know you all would agree with the same, isn’t it?
The emerging EdTech
India and its bright minds are not unknown to the world, our country has been home to great brains in the past and will continue to be in the future.
Changing and developing with the advancing times is a must and considering this, our country climbed the development ladder too via technology, with which came the emergence of the Indian EdTech Sector which introduced technology in education - with the new learning models evolving and the technology advancing, limitless possibilities are opened up to the students irrespective of their age and location.
EdTech has been around people for a long time, its natural development arose along with the improvements in Technology.
A glance at some figures
According to a recent report by EY-IVCA, the market size of the Indian EdTech sector is expected to grow by 3.7 times in the next five years, estimated to grow from $2.8 billion in 2020 to $10.4 billion in 2025. Considering the Global Landscape, India has the Second-highest number of start-ups, with 10% being located in the country.
By 2020 there were around 4,530 EdTech Start-ups in India among which around 435 start-ups were founded between 2019-20. According to IVCA, the Indian EdTech startups have seen a rise in the total investment from $553 million in 2019 to $2.22 billion in 2020.
India is also home to the EdTech start-up which has the highest amount of capital - BYJU’S.
Since the Covid Pandemic and shutting down of all the educational institutions across the world, the EdTech Sector experienced a lot of growth with a distinctive rise in e-learning. Even in the pre-pandemic period, there was growth and adoption in the EdTech sector but at a snail’s pace. It is now facilitating a new way of learning and is accepted as a ‘new normal.
A Peek at the Top Indian EdTech Companies
BYJU’s
It is an Indian Multinational EdTech Company, headquartered in Bangalore. It was developed by Think and Learn Pvt Ltd., established by Byju Raveendran and Divya Gokulnath in 2011. It received seed funding in 2013 from Aarin Capital. In August 2015, the firm launched Byju’s: The Learning App. By 2018, it had 1.5 crores users and 900,000 paid users. By September 2020 BYJU’s added more than 25 million new students to its platform due to lockdown and as of early 2021, it surpassed 80 million users of which 5.5 million are paying subscribers.
It has a current Market Valuation of $16.5 billion, making it India’s most valuable Unicorn Start-up and the 11th most valuable start-up in the world.
Vedantu
Vedantu Innovations Pvt Ltd. is a Bangalore-based online tutoring platform launched in October 2014 for the public. It is founded by Vamsi Krishna, Pulkit Jain, Saurabh Saxena, and Anand Prakash.
After raising its first round of funding, it decided to utilize the funds in developing the technology solutions for tablets and mobile which can concurrently run hundreds of live sessions. Vedantu’s latest valuation is reported to be $600 million making it the second most valued Indian EdTech firm after Byju’s. In the year 2019, it had around 700,000 users who took free live classes. The company aims for its paid userbase to touch 1 million by March of next year, also it expects to cross more than 250,000 paying subscribers this year.
Unacademy
Started in 2010 as a YouTube Channel by Gaurav Munjal and then officially registered as an Edtech Company in 2015, Unacademy is a Bangalore-based start-up. The Company’s founders are- Gaurav Munjal, Roman Saini, and Hemesh Singh.
As of December 2020, it was valued at $2 billion. Its latest valuation is $3.44 billion. It now has 30 million registered users and 350,000 paying subscribers.
upGrad
In the year 2015, with an endeavour to facilitate quality education to the future workforce upGrad was founded by – Ronnie Screwvala, Mayank Kumar, and Phalgun Kompalli. By 2018, the company touched 10,000+ learners. In 2019 became India’s largest online higher education company with the highest gross revenue in the Indian Market. By 2020 it crossed the 500k learners’ milestone.
With a $185 million funding round, it hit a valuation of $1.2 billion, thus entering the Unicorn Club. The company impacted over 1 million total registered learners in over 50+ countries across the world. It ranked no.1 in the LinkedIn Top Startups India 2020 list.
Summing up
With an intent to spread digital literacy and create a knowledge-based society, online education ensures ‘access, equity, and quality. The Indian Government programs like ‘Digital India’ and ‘Skill India’ coupled with the New Education Policy 2020 focuses on the necessity of leveraging technology.
With the Indian EdTech Industry flourishing year by year, along with new techniques and ideas, the giants giving tough competition to each other, mergers & acquisitions taking place. Among all such tussles, it will be fun to observe how the industry will shape itself in the coming future.
Written by: Devangi Sharma
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