Many of us have watched ads for Unacademy, Byjus, Vedantu and Upgrad. All of these ads have one thing in common. And, that is the idea of combining education and technology and facilitating it to a large number of people through online platforms.
Here, we have the top 10 ed-tech startups. Before that, let’s figure out what exactly an ed-tech startup is.
WHAT IS AN ED-TECH STARTUP?
As the word suggests, Ed-tech is made from two words- “Education” and “Technology”. It means edutech startups are those which enhance the learning experience by applying the newest Information technology methods in the field of education.
With this, education has become more personalised, engaging and interactive backed by IoT, Blockchain, and Machine Learning. This enables students to record lectures, assign homework, and grading tests amongst other advantages.
What Ed-Tech Has To Offer To Students And Teachers?
With the advent of technology, now students can have a more personalized experience and a better understanding of topics, as technology allows them to provide graphical presentations for several subjects. These days students have the option to store their study material on cloud-based platforms, they can go through the lectures, again and again, now they have the flexibility to mould their studying time as per their flexibility.
Even for teachers, ed-tech has enabled them with automated grading, digital classrooms, and accessibility to analyze the student’s key areas to work harder on.
Top 10 Ed-tech Startups-
1) BYJU’S
Based In Bangalore, founded in 2015, Byju’s was started by Mr Byju Raveendran. Byju’s is backed by Marquee investors like Owl Ventures and Tiger Global Management, Sequoia Capital, Tencent, Times Internet, etc. It raised a total of $2.7B in funding over 18 rounds. An, their latest funding was on Jun 21, 2021, from a Series F round, where IIFL invested in them.
BYJU’S is India’s largest ed-tech company and the creator of India’s most loved school learning app which offers highly adaptive, engaging and effective learning programs for students in LKG, UKG, classes 1 -12 (K-12) and competitive exams like JEE, NEET and IAS. BYJU’S has a learning app BYJU’S – The Learning App, which was launched for classes 4-12 in 2015. Today, their app has more than 75 million registered students and 5.2 million students who have taken annual paid subscriptions. A student is reported to spend an average time of 71 minutes on their app from 1700+ cities, the app is said to re-establish the meaning of learning.
They also have a learning platform called The Disney BYJU’S Early Learn App which was launched in June 2019, a special offering from BYJU’S for students studying in classes 1-3. The USP of this app is that they feature Disney’s timeliness characters. In early 2019, BYJU’S acquired Osmo, a Palo Alto-based maker of educational games to recreate the whole offline to the online learning experience. Besides this, BYJU’S acquired White Hat Jr in 2020, a Mumbai-based programming start-up that aimed to teach children coding.
2) TOPPR
Founded in 2013, Toppr is a Mumbai based EdTech startup that aims to make after-school learning a personalised experience. They cater to the needs of the individuals studying in the classes of 5 to 12 and provide the widest K12 syllabus coverage with 1 million course combinations. In addition to this, they assist the students to crack various school, board, and competitive exams. Abled with artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data, Toppr claims to study student behaviour and customise adaptive learning paths with infinite combinations. Thus, ensuring every student a unique and personalised learning experience.
As per their LinkedIn account, Toppr has won multiple awards some of which are- Top 50 International Education Companies with Impact – Tyton Global Growth 50 – 2018, Best Education Platform – Indian Education Awards 2018 and Top 20 – EdTechX Global Awards – 2017.
3) UNACADEMY
Unacademy is an e-learning platform that was founded by Heemash Singh, Gaurav Munjal, and Sachin Gupta in 2010. Unacademy began its journey to the ed-tech business with Youtube. In 2017, Unacademy became India’s largest online learning platform having more than 1 million learners & 40k live classes.
In 2018, this Live Learning platform had 200k+ daily active users. And, in 2020, they acquired Kreatryx, PrepLadder and Codechef to open more avenues of learning. They also launched their Graphy app so that the students can enjoy interactive stories & books. Now, it has more than 50 million active learners, with over 1000 educators and 2000+ daily live classes. They serve the students of 6 to 12 and also prepare students for the competitive exams like Chartered Accountancy or CA, UPSC, CAT, JEE, CLAT, etc.
4) UPGRAD
Founded by Mayank Kumar, Phalgun Kompalli, and Ronnie Screwvala in 2015, upGrad is India’s largest online higher education company based in Mumbai that aims to provide programs in Data Science, Technology, Management and Law, to students, working professionals and enterprises.
On June 24, Upgrad came up with a new learning model that focuses on the corporate workforce demand that helps them stay abreast of evolving skill sets and trends. This new model of Upgrad will have over 100-course portfolios that will enable employees to upskill themselves. Otherwise, Upgrad programs are designed and delivered in collaboration with top universities like the IIT Madras, MICA, NMIMS Global Access, Jindal Global Law School, Duke CE, Deakin University, Liverpool John Moores University and others.
With an 85% program completion rate, this tech platform focuses to provide students with an “industry-relevant curriculum, strong mentorship, and placement support.” By July of 2021, upGrad is focused on launching its courses in Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, the UK, West Asia, Australia and North Africa, and the US.
5) VEDANTU
Founded in 2011, headquartered in Bengaluru, it won’t be wrong to say Vedantu is one of the “pioneers of online interactive tutoring” in India. Vedantu is a LIVE online learning platform that brings together students and teachers together and gives the feeling of a classroom at home. This platform empowers students to pick a teacher from a pool of India’s best teachers and learn from them via LIVE interactive classes.
Vedantu ensures that students get their problems solved instantaneously from their tutors, take part in quizzes & activities and have a personalised learning experience from India’s best teachers. Their app provides both free as well as paid classes. They provide tutorials for 6 to 12 and have study material starting from grade 1 itself.
6) LIDO LEARNING
New in the game of edutech, Lido learning was founded in 2019, Sahil Sheth, ex-VP at Byju’s, Mumbai-based Lido Learning serves the students from KG to 10th and looks after their needs for Maths, Science, English, and Coding.
Their top-notch tutors & small classes with a maximum 6:1 student to teacher ratio ensures that every child gets the personal attention they need for their growth. At Lido, a student can get cutting edge content like “animated videos and interactive games, a personalized platform for homework, tests, challenges, and inspiring teachers”, as per their LinkedIn profile.
7) GRADEUP
Founded by Sanjeev Kumar, Shobhit Bhatnagar, and Vibhu Bhushanin in 2015, have established highly engaging exam-specific communities of students and mentors for cracking the exams like JEE, GATE, NEET, UPSC, Defence, SSC, Banking, Teaching and State level exams.
Gradeup is one of India’s most trusted exam preparation platforms, that is helping more than 3 crores registered students to prepare actively for various exams. Live courses, diverse test series for all competitive exams, the support system is Gradup’s Unique Selling Proposition. Adding to it, this startup is expecting to expand its user base manifold by December 2021.
8) MERITNATION
Founded by Pavan Chauhan back in 2008, Meritnation is said to be India’s 1st online learning platform for school students studying in CBSE, ICSE, and leading state boards. Meritnation is a part of the largest and prestigious AESL group (Aakash Educational Services Limited), a leading educational institution in India that provides comprehensive mentorship for students preparing for Medical and Engineering Entrance Examinations, School/Board Exams and Competitive Exams such as NTSE, KVPY, and Olympiads.
Meritnation was founded in 2009 by IIM graduates who believed that every child is special. They customised the courses available on offer that can be categorized into two – the ‘Self- Study’ courses, where the learners can study at their own pace with the help of materials ranging from videos to tests and smart reports, and the ‘Live Classes’. With features like in-class quizzes and polls, chat and a platform for ‘beyond the classroom’ connect with teachers, Meritnation’s Live Classes are a one-stop destination for a student to learn.
9) Doubtnut
Doubtnut is an App that makes students study questions in Math just by clicking the picture of the problem or concept. As per their LinkedIn account, Doubtnut has “Subject matter experts then create a Khan Academy style video to answer each doubt.” With the help of video solutions, on Doubtnut students not only find the answer but also get aware of the problem-solving approach employed by the expert.
Thus, leading to a deeper understanding of the concept. Doubtnut solves the complex problems asked commonly and popularly by the students by reusing content that has already been created to resolve the doubts. Hence, several doubts can be resolved with a limited number of teachers.
10) TESTBOOK
Founded in 2014 by IIT Bombay alumni Kumar, Narendra Agrawal, Manoj Munna, and Praveen Agrawal, the textbook is one the rising startups in the EdTech space that has over user base of “over 140+ lakh students, 470+ crore questions solved on the Web and a knockout Android App”, statistics provided in their LinkedIn handle. As per the recent media reports, the company is aiming to become a leader in this $5 billion examination preparation industry in India.
During the covid-era, nearly 70 lakh users joined this platform. Here, students get live tutoring-based courses, exam-based mock tests and data-driven recommendations at every single step of their preparation for over 350 exams and also they get dozens of skills on the Testbook app. Currently, Testbook has 1.8 crore registered users, over 18 lakh paid users and through their platform 50,000 students have got job placements.
Testbook, in collaboration with book publisher S. Chand, is all set to SmartBook, which is a physical book but has features that give the online experience in a physical book.
Disclaimer: Note that the provided top 10 Edtech Startups are not based on any ranking but the discretion of the writer.
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