India’s Vedantu bags $5M to give students specialized teachers from anywhere

In India, students often feel too shy to clarify their doubts in a crowded coaching classes. Many students travel long hours to get to class. Bangalore-based Vedantu wants to break these shackles by liberating learning and teaching from the limits of location. It has developed tools to give live online tutoring sessions through in-built whiteboard, audio, and video technology.

Today, the company announced that they have raised US$5 million from Accel Partners and Tiger Global in series A funding.

Vedantu is founded by four IITian friends – Vamsi Krishna, Pulkit Jain, Saurabh Saxena, and Anand Prakash – who previously ran Lakshya, a coaching institute that specialised in entrance test prep for engineering and medicine. The company was acquired by a public listed company, MTEducare in 2012.

Vedantu, a six-month-old startup, caters to students from grade six to 12. Besides monthly tuitions, it provides test prep coaching for competitive exams like National Talent Search Examination (NTSE), International Mathematics Olympiad (IMO), and Joint Entrance Exam (JEE).

Personalized teaching

With fresh funding, the startup will create a system where a student can choose a suitable teacher in real time.

The name Vedantu is derived by two Sanskrit words veda (meaning knowledge) and tantu (meaning network), signifying “a ‘knowledge network’ where any student can tap into a teacher of his choice directly and the learning can happen, anytime-anywhere.”

“Our technology simulates a live session between a teacher and a student giving them an experience as if they were sitting across each other. The platform gives convenience to teacher and student to operate from their own locations,” says Krishna.

The startup claims their teachers are from top tier colleges and have the experience of cracking the toughest exams, undergone rigorous training, and have a deep understanding of student psychology.

Another startup that is tapping tutors in India is Bangalore-based Flipclass, a marketplace of tutors that also allows parents to check their kids’ performance.