Indian online education startup Vedantu has raised USD 12.6 million as part of its Series C1 round led by Beijing-headquartered venture capital firm Legend Capital with participation from Omidyar Network.
While Legend Capital putting in USD 10 million, Omidyar Network infused USD 2.8 million in Vedantu for a total of 775,145 Series C1 Compulsorily Convertible Preference Shares at an issue price of INR 1,239.36 per share, according to the regulatory filings accessed by local media Economic Times.
This investment comes two months after the Bengaluru-based company raised USD 24 million from GGV Capital in February as part of its Series C round. In August 2019, Vedantu had raised USD 42 million led by Tiger Global Management and WestBridge Capital in the same funding round.
Online education companies in India have been offering free courses to users since all schools and colleges are shut due to the lockdown to contain the spread of novel coronavirus. Vedantu, which is a live tutoring platform, has claimed it has added a lot of new users due to its free offering. Currently, it claims to have over six million students on its platform who take live classes every month.
In its last funding round in February, Vamsi Krishna, Vedantu’s founder had said the company would utilize the money to expand into new categories like early childhood to lower grades (kindergarten to standard 5). It said it would also invest in strengthening its analytics measuring tool called WAVE.
According to industry tracker Tracxn, VC investment in edtech space has gained pace in 2020. Online tutoring startups in India have attracted USD 686.32 million in 21 rounds of investment in the first quarter of this year. One of the few biggest rounds of funding includes Byju’s that raised USD 400 million in two separate rounds in January and February led by Tiger Global and General Atlantic, respectively. Bengaluru-based Unacademy raised USD 110 million from Facebook and General Atlantic.