Indian Online Tutoring Platform Vedantu Nabs $5M From Accel And Tiger Global

Vedantu, an online tutoring platform, disclosed today that it has raised a $5 million series A from Accel Partners and Tiger Global Management.

Test preparation is a big market in India as more students gear up for the exams they need to ace in order to score a place at a prestigious university. The Bangalore-based startup’s announcement comes one day after Toppr, another test prep startup, disclosed $10 million in new funding.

Unlike Vedantu, Toppr offers online practice exams instead of tutoring sessions, but both companies are aimed at students who want to get into top secondary education institutions.

Traditionally, test takers rely on brick-and-mortar coaching centers, but more ed-tech companies are springing up and more students are supplementing offline courses with online study materials and tutoring. In fact, enough entrance exam startups have been founded to trigger a wave of consolidation.

There is still room for different companies, however, since the test prep market is expected to grow at a steady compound annual growth rate of 3.85 percent until 2019, according to Indalytics Advisors.

Vedantu was launched six months ago by the same team that founded Lakshya Forum for Competitions, an engineering school entrance exam preparation startup that was acquired by MT Educare in 2012.

In a prepared statement, co-founder and chief executive officer Vamsi Krishna says the company’s series A will be to scale up its platform so students can connect with a tutor in real-time and also make Vedantu available on mobile devices.