BrightChamps Raises $63 Mn At $500 Mn Valuation

SUMMARY

BrightChamps offers a school-supportive curriculum to Grade 1-12 students centred around coding, creative thinking, social collaboration, Industry 4.0 concepts and scientific experiments

The startup plans to use the funds to expand internationally, hire across various functions, acquisition in adjacent verticals and launch more courses, including financial literacy

BrightChamps claims to have been profitable to date without external funding, and it has 1,000+ teachers and 100K+ students on its platform

Goa-based edtech startup BrightChamps has raised a total of $63 Mn led by Premji Invest, GSV Ventures, Binny Bansal, 021 Capital and Beenext. With this round, the startup is now valued at around $500 Mn.

Founded by Ravi Bhushan in 2020, BrightChamps offers a school-supportive curriculum to students from various boards. The certificate-based classes are centred around coding, creative thinking, social collaboration, Industry 4.0 concepts and scientific experiments. They are divided into three sections — Grade 1-3, Grade 3-6 and Grade 7-12 — offering a mix of next-gen skills in the local languages of the students.

The edtech startup plans to use the funds to expand internationally, including the Middle East, Singapore, Indonesia, the US, Canada, among others. As the platform has come out of stealth mode, it claims to have amassed 1,000+ teachers and 100K+ students who spend more than 6-million minutes on the platform for live learning. The startup is also exploring acquisition opportunities with like-minded firms.

Moving forward, BrightChamp is also planning to host olympiads, launch a peer-to-peer experience product vertical, and add financial literacy programs to the curriculum. It plans on opening a centre of excellence in Bengaluru. BrightChamps will further expand its team across functions such as product, technology, growth, content, operations, sales, marketing and business development.

The startup further claims that it has been organically profitable to date without consuming any external funding.

It’s Raining Funding In Edtech

The edtech space has witnessed a flurry of investments and acquisitions of late, backed by the demand the sector is witnessing amid the pandemic. The sector already has five unicorns in India. This year alone, we have seen the entry of three edtech startups into the unicorn club — Vedantu, upGrad and Eruditus.

Apart from BrightChamps, soonicorns in the Indian edtech startups’ ecosystem include Teachmint that raised $78 Mn, at $500 Mn+ valuation and ClassPlus that raised $65 Mn at $270 Mn+. Interestingly, edtech startups with major valuation swell, such as Great Learning, Epic, EduKart, have been acquired by other unicorns. Upcoming talk-of-the-town edtech startups include Pesto Tech, Masai School, Practically, Convegenius, Leverage Edu, among others.

According to Inc42 Plus analysis, in the first three quarters of 2021, Indian edtech startups have raised close to $3.2 Bn in investments. The edtech sector, in Q3 FY22 alone, witnessed 1.4 Bn in funding across 44 deals.

Given the uncertainty around schools, colleges and other educational institutions reopening, edtech startups are expected to witness growth in user base and venture capital funding.

Further, Inc42 Plus analysis shows that the market size of edtech in India is estimated to grow 3.7x in the next five years, from $2.8 Bn (2020) to $10.4 Bn (2025). Amid the $10 Bn market size, K12 learning solutions are expected to account for 41% of the total edtech market.