SUMMARY
The company plans to use the fund to recruit additional teaching staff, develop new technology features and online courses for high school students
Chennai-based Ahaguru was founded in 2012 by Gomathi S and Dr Balaji Sampath
According to Inc42 Plus, the Indian online learning market is expected to be worth $1.96 Bn by 2021
Chennai-based edtech startup Ahaguru on Thursday raised an undisclosed amount in a Series A round led by an investment firm that is managed by Anand Mahindra’s family office.
Founded in 2012 by Gomathi S and Dr Balaji Sampath, Ahaguru offers a mentored learning programme as well as live virtual online classes for IIT JEE, CBSE, ICSE, NEET test preparation. Under the mentored learning programme, Ahaguru provides students with a personal mentor to track their progress and answer their doubts in the test prep journey. The virtual classes are part of a two-year programme that helps students learn directly from subject matter experts in live sessions.
The company plans to use the fund to on board further experts for it live classes and mentored programmes, add more features to its edtech platform and expand into online courses for high school students beyond test prep. It will also look to increase its user base in India and the Middle East.
“The funding will enable us to launch new courses to help students with their school and board exams. We are investing in artificial intelligence (AI) to personalise the learning experience for each student. Our predictive learning model identifies student learning patterns and suggests enhancements that improve the success rate of students,” said its cofounder Balaji Sampath.
Edtech Startups Eye Massive Opportunity
As per Inc42 Plus’ The Future Of India’s $2 Bn Edtech Opportunity Report 2020, India is home to more than 1.5 Mn schools with over 260 Mn students enrolled and about 751 universities and over 35K colleges. Every year millions of students take competitive exams at various levels, with millions of rupees spent in the background on schooling, coaching, training and more.
While K-12 and test prep are expected to account for nearly 66% of the total online education market size by 2021, K-12’s current market size is said to be around $773 Mn growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 60%. The prominent startups in this segment are Lido Learning, Vedantu, Unacademy, CueLearn and BYJU’S.
According to Inc42 Plus, the Indian online learning market is expected to be worth $1.96 Bn by 2021. As per the report, before Covid-19 lockdown, seven out of 10 top edtech players were focussed on school-level online learning. Vedantu, LearnCBSE, BYJU’S, Toppr, Tiwari Academy, Meritnation and Gradeup collectively captured 51.25% of the traffic share.
