This Week in Deals — August, September, October
Between August 1, 2022 and October 31, 2022; we saw 27 companies in the Indian EdTech space getting funded or acquired. Companies came from diverse segments such as Upskilling, Test Prep, K-12, HigherEd, Career Guidance, B2B Tech, and Early Education.
Who Got A Slice?
Exampur (M&A, Undisclosed): Exampur provides study material repositories and e-books portfolio for candidates for government examinations, focusing on UPSC, SSC, defence, banking, teaching, among others. upGrad has acquired Exampur for an undisclosed amount.upGrad (Growth, $210 Million):Founded in 2015, upGrad is India’s largest online higher education company providing programs. upGrad raised $210 million from ETS Global, Bodhi Tree, Kaizen Management Advisors, Family Office of Bharti Airtel, Narotam Sekhsaria Family Office, and Artian Investments, Temasek, IFC, and IIFL.Jodo (Series A, $15 Million): Jodo provides flexible school fee payment options to parents. The company raised its $15 million Series A round led by Tiger Global, with participation from Elevation Capital and Matrix Partners India.LearnQ (Growth, Undisclosed): Founded in 2020, LearnQ is provides a learning platform to students preparing for SAT, GRE, TOEFL, IELTS, and GMAT. The company raised an undisclosed amount from Raghunath Subramanian.Redeminds (Seed, $220K): Redeminds is an end-to-end career guidance platform for school students. The seed round of $220,000 was led by Surfboard Ventures and Contentstack.FreeCo (M&A, Undisclosed): FreeCo is a doubt-solving and resource management startup providing services such as textbook solutions, video solutions, and business automation, among other. PW acquired FreeCo for an undisclosed.Sunstone Eduversity (Series C, $35 Million): Sunstone offers upskilling programmes in partnership with corporates across BFSI, Analytics, Logistics, Sales, Retail, and Digital Marketing.
The $35 million Series C round was led by WestBridge Capital with participation from Alteria Capital.Winuall (Growth, $2 Million): Winuall is a social commerce platform that allows educators to share a wide range of curated courses to their students’ online education platforms. The company helps coaching institutes go digital by providing them with content and performance improvement recommendations. Dream Incubator, Inflection Point Ventures, Prime Venture Partners, BEENEXT and other investors invested in the round.Jackett (Seed, $1 Million): Jackett provides a software to teachers for automating time-consuming tasks such as creating, grading and personalising assessments. The seed round was led by Forge Ventures, Entrepreneur First and Epic Angels Network with participation from Angel investors.Klassroom Edutech (Seed, $1 Million): Klassroom offers offline and online classes for Classes 6–12, IIT-JEE, NEET, CA, CS, and for other leading competitive exams. ah! Ventures led the round, with participation from StartupLanes and Startup Angels Network.OLL (Seed, $115K): OLL is a marketplace for teachers to connect with students and offer courses in coding, robotics, arts, language, life skills and other subjects. Online Live Learning has raised $115K in a seed round led by We Founder Circle.Centum Learning (M&A, Undisclosed): Centum offers learning and training solutions to corporates, along with offering vocational and educational training to schools and college learners. upGrad has acquired Centum in a share-swap deal. Two people close to the development pegged the deal size at ₹120 crore (around $15 million).Student Ink (Seed, Undisclosed): Student Ink is an Educational Networking platform with 300+ schools, 6,000 educators, and over 1.6 lakh users. It offers over 600 courses on the platform. The seed round was raised from We Founder Circle (WFC).Bhanzu (Series A, $15 Million): Bhanzu offers mathematics programmes for students between 6–16 years. The $15 million round was led by Eight Roads Ventures and B Capital.Outscal (Seed, $1.5 Million): Outscal is a community-first, ed-tech platform to upscale talent in the gaming industry. It offers courses in game development and Web 3. The seed round was raised from Kalaari Capital.Guvi* (M&A, Undisclosed): Guvi offers venacular tech upskilling courses. IT giant, HCL Group acquired a majority stake in GUVI for an undisclosed amount. Through this acquisition, HCL plans to create skilled tech professionals in India and abroad.Coding Ninjas (M&A, $68 Million): Coding Ninjas offers online courses in Java, Python, and C++. Info Edge acquired a majority stake in the company. It increased its shareholding from 26% to 51% (for a consideration of $17 Million).Artium Academy (Growth, $3 Million): Artium Academy offers online music learning programs. It raised $3 million from Chiratae Ventures, Anicut Capital, Jet Synthesis, Whiteboard Capital, and angel investors.Adda247 (Growth, $35 Million): Adda247 offers live-video classes, on-demand video courses, mock tests, and books for government examinations. WestBridge Capital led the round, with participation from Google, Info Edge, and Asha Impact.Deeksha (M&A, $40 Million): Deeksha provides test preparation courses in Karnataka for board and competitive exams. Vedantu acquired Deeksha (Ace Creative Learning) for $40 Mn to further strengthen its offline presence.PrepOnline (M&A, Undisclosed): PrepOnline offers an online learning platform for NEET, board exams, and state-level government exams preparation. PW acquired PrepOnline for an undisclosed amount.AltisVortex (M&A, Undisclosed): Altis Vortex is a publisher of NCERT-based books for classes 11 and 12, NEET, and CUET-UG exam preparations. PW acquired AltisVortex for an undisclosed amount.JK Shah Classes (M&A, $41 Million): J K Shah Classes is a test prep platform which provides classes for CA, CS and CMA. Veranda Learning acquired the company for $41 Million.Byju’s (Growth, $250 Million): BYJU’S provides personalized learning programs for K-12 students. It raised $250 million in a fresh funding round from its existing investors along with QIA.Masai School (Pre-Series B, $4.8 Million): Masai School is a coding bootcamp offering courses in full-stack, web, and android development. India Quotient and On Mauritius led the Pre-Series B round, with participation from Unitus Ventures.Serosoft (Growth, $3.8 Million): Serosoft is an ERP/Student Information System (SIS) to manage educational and administrative activities. SIDBI Venture Capital invested INR 30 Crore in Serosoft.AlmaBetter (Seed, $2.7 Million): AlmaBetter offers programmes in data science, software development, and blockchain. The $2.7 million round was led by Kalaari Capital.
* LoEstro was the exclusive financial advisor to Guvi on its sale to HCL
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This Week in Deals — August, September, October was originally published in LoEstro Advisors on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
