Vedantu, the biggest rival of Byju’s, has finally entered the unicorn club

• Edtech firm Vedantu has raised $100 million in a round led by Temasek-backed impact investing fund ABC World Asia.
• Vedantu is one of the biggest edtech startups in India, which directly competes with Byju’s.
• Both Byju’s and Vendatu have set their eyes on overseas markets to expand their business further.

Edtech firm Vedantu, which offers online courses for school kids, is the latest Indian startup to be valued over a billion dollars. The company reached this valuation after raising $100 million in a round led by Temasek-backed impact investing fund ABC World Asia.

The company plans to use this capital to double down on its core business, teach in vernacular languages and add tutoring solutions for grade 1-5. The company is also planning to enter overseas markets.

Vedantu is one of the biggest edtech startups in India, which directly competes with Byju’s. Even Toppr was a prominent player in this domain, before it was acquired by Byju’s earlier this year.

There is a player trying to enter Byju’s block

Byju’s, which is valued at a whopping over $16.8 billion, is also planning to go big in both India and international markets over the next year. The company spent 2020 creating a billion dollar war chest for itself and is using that money to make big acquisitions this year.

Several media reports published in August had highlighted that Byju’s was also in talks eot acquire Vedantu. However, Vendatu chief executive and co-founder Vamsi Krishna came on record to deny these rumours.

But given the aggressive acquisition strategies, Byju’s is jokingly referred to as Buyju’s, by many on social media.

Vedantu has proved to be a worthy player in the edtech market over the last one year, but given the amount of cash Byju’s has to dispose off, the competition in the edtech market may tighten.

Currently, Byju’s has several edtech companies under its banner — including Toppr, WhiteHat Jr, Singapore-based Great Learnings, US-based OSMO, EPIC and Whodat. The company also acquired Aakash Educational Services, which has over 250 coaching centers for engineering and medical exams.

Vedantu, on the other hand, has added artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled personalised learning platform Pedagogy and doubt-solving platform Instasolv to its bucket. The company has raised close to $300 million to date from marquee investors like Tiger Global Management, GGV Capital Coatue and others.

Byju’s has raised over $3 billion to date from Mirae Asset Global Investment, Blackstone and others.

Vedantu has more than 35 million students attend classes on its platform every month, of which one million attend live classes. The company has marked its presence in across 10,000 cities and over 50 countries. Byju’s, on the other hand, has 100 million users in total.

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