The education sector witnessed a massive transformation due to the pandemic. The pandemic opened the doors of these sector’s stakeholders in such a way that was never seen before. The add an enthusiasm in this sector, The Union Budget 2022, is focused on encouraging digital adaptation of education across the nation

Edtech startups raised $4.7 Bn in 165 deals to emerge as the third most-funded sector in 2021. Surprising fact is, Byju’s alone raised $1.9 Bn alone. India’s population today stands at 1.35 billion & it will require a lot of edtech driven penetration to satisfy the educational requirements of all the potential learners.

Mergers & Acquisitions in the edtech industry is a daily routine. You may know what we’re talking about. We usually hear news about a so-n-so startup acquiring a so-n-so edtech startup. The edtech space as a whole witnessed 31 M&A deals, accounting for 15% of the total 206 M&A deals in the startup universe. The objective of M&A is basically to increase user base, grow product offerings & to capture audiences in newer segments.

Leading Players in the edtech sector:

App-based platform Byju’s is the current leading player in the industry which provides courses for competitive test preparation & supplementary courses for students. You might have heard of your relatives, subscribing to Byju’s services during the covid. Byju’s has raised $3.47B till date. Then we have Unacademy which has raised $880M. It is a mobile & SaaS-based platform providing multi-disciplinary learning & test preparation solutions. Eruditus, the provider of executive level programs is the third leading player operating in this segment which has also raised close to $814M till date.

 Then we have a startup which is operating in a niche segment of providing higher education for working professionals. This 4th startup is Upgrad (remember Ranvijay’s marketing in Shark Tank India?). Then we have startups like personalized tutoring platform Vedantu, online teaching & classroom management platform Teachmint & provider of tuition class management software Classplus.

India’s growing literacy rates and curious youth will certainly require different tech driven platforms to upskill themselves. This topic brings to an interesting conclusion by itself that India requires more & more niche startups in this segment to fulfil the needs of the nation. The nation believes this boom of edtech startups will contribute to the development of the country. And it will. Let us also accept the fact that traditional learning is expected to regain momentum, but edtech is unlikely to fade in 2022 or beyond.

Other leading startups in the edtech space- Adda247, Aptus Learn, ask.CAREERS, AskIITians, Asmakam, Boardinfinity, Careers360, Classplus etc