Virtual Education has been growing at a phenomenal pace in India. The unique blend of investor confidence and tech advancements has made the landscape lucrative for startups operating in the education-technology (or edTech) space. The confluence of factors like pedagogy, user experience, analytics, and gamification has further improved the impact of these edTech startups. Let’s see some of the startups that have successfully managed to bring a radical change to the traditional mode of imparting education in India
1) Toppr.com
Founders – ZeeshanHayath&HemanthGoteti
What it does –The Mumbai based personalized eLearning solutions provider assists students in their preparation for competitive entrance exams like IIT JEE and NEET. The company provides interactive and innovative solutions aimed at students between 5th and 12th Grades.
Students can use the app in the below ways –
- Watch lecture videos online and enable self-paced learning
- Get access to practice tests and question banks in your chosen subjects
- Get the social element in studying by inviting friends for mock tests
The app allows students to set their own personalized learning goals, based on their preferences, strengths, and weaknesses. They cover syllabi from major boards like CBSE, IGCSE, SSC, ICSE, and HSC
Funding –It raised a venture debt funding of $2.3 Mn from Alteria Capital in May 2018
2) Meritnation
Founders – PavanChauhan
What it does –With more than 1.5 crore sign-ups, Meritnation does deserve merit as one of the better-known edTech startups operating in India. It caters to CBSE and ICSE students for Classes 6 to 12. Its unique Ask and Answer feature has experts solving questions for students’ better understanding. So far, they have provided 40 lakh free answers for 16 lakh questions.
Funding – It raised Rs. 38 crore from Info Edge in November 2017
3) WizIQ
Founders – Harman Singh
What it does –Get a truly virtual classroom environment with anytime, anywhere learning enabled by WizIQ. With the app, users can either conduct or participate in live classes virtually. Student and teachers can interact with one another via audio video capabilities. They can upload and share documents, presentations, and other types of multimedia files for efficient collaboration too. The app adds immense academic value to both learners and educators.
Funding – The last news about its funding was on-going talks for Series C funding in 2015, to follow a 2013 series B funding round for $4million from Kaizen Capital
4) Vedantu
Founders – Vamsi Krishna, SaurabhSaxena, AnandPrakash, and Pulkit Jain
What it does – It specializes in grade 6 to 12 and offers live online tutoring for competitive exams like NTSE, PSA, and JEE Mains. One of the unmatched features of the app is the live 1:1 teaching that happens between the learner and the educator. This way, students get to interact with a tutor of their choice via live sessions on mobile streaming.
Funding – The Bangalore-based startup has raised $10 million in a round of funding that happened in April 2018.
5) FHC Online
Founder – CA FarooqHaque
What it does – FHC Online has emerged as one of the best avenues for CA and CS students to improve their academic performance. The startup provides online CA lectures. The startup is known for pioneering the concept of sharing CA video lectures on pen drive. It also provides app based and video based lectures for CA examinations. An interesting feature of the app that goes beyond traditional test papers and online support, is the learning skills sessions available to CA students. Mr. Haque himself shares ideas and inspiration to help students cope with the rigors of the competitive exam and score well.
6) Sigrid Education
Founders– AjitMaheswari, AtulKasaundhan and AakashAggarwal
What it does – eLearning startup boasts of a count of 100,000 registered users on its app. It enables educators to come online and provide access to deeply curated course content in the form of courseware and testing material developed specially by them. Students get the opportunity to harness the world class teaching pedagogy and teaching experience of reputed professors and teachers.
Funding – In 2015 it secured an undisclosed round of funding from Oliphans Capital
7) EduKart
Founders–Ishan Gupta
What it does –Paytm owned Edukart has more than 10,000 paid students on its platform. It has also forged partnerships with 120+ course providers like Edureka and Simplilearn. They operate more than 2,500 courses live on their platform.Students can choose from a range of degree, diploma, and certificate courses and learn at their own chosen pace.
Funding – Before itsaqui-hiring by Paytm, Edukart had raised $2 million across three rounds of funding in 2015.
8) Simplilearn
Founder – Krishna Kumar
What it does –The startup specializes as an online certification course expert. It had acquired US based Market Motive in mid-2015. Before this phase, it was focused on providing certification to individuals logging on to its platform. After the acquisition, it moved from individual to corporate clients, to enable enterprise employees to upgrade their skills set and be better equipped for future job demands.
Funding –Simplilearn had massive plans to scale up rapidly aided by a Series D funding in the first half of 2017. It estimated to raise around $30-$40 million in this round.
9) Byju’s
Founder –ByjuRaveendran
What it does –The Bangalore based startup has a flagship smartphone app Byju’s that provides interactive and visually appealing educational content for classes 4 to 12. It also caters to the students preparing for competitive exams like IIT-JEE, NEET, CAT, and IAS. Recently, it has started app-based content delivery for examination preparations for global exams like GRE and GMAT.
Funding – As per latest updates,Byju’s is looking for $300 million funding in September 2018 to boost its overall valuation to a whopping $2 billion, making it a rare unicorn in the edTech space.
10) CultureAlley
Founder – PranshuBhandari
What it does –The company started off as an online learning platform with a focus on audio-visual based learning for learners. However, it later pivoted to language learning courses in English and Spanish among other languages. As per the company, it has assisted about three million users to learn English since its launch.
Funding – Its last round of funding was in 2015, when it raised $6.5 million in Series A funding from Tiger Global and other VCs.
These were the top 10 edTech startups that are radically changing the modes and approaches for learning with their new-age e-Learning solutions. Do let us know if there are any other noteworthy name that you know of? We would love to hear from you.
Shreya Singh is a freelancer writer since 2012. She is an alumnus of the University of Delhi and has done her post graduation in English literature.She has more than 5 years of experience in writing in various domains like education, lifestyle and technology. In her free time, she loves sharing travel experiences, so that it helps others when they travel.
These platforms are actually very helpful and provide great help to the students in distance education.
The information provided in the blog is amazing. Keep updating us with such posts.