SUMMARY
The round saw investments from Sequoia Surge, Blume Ventures among others
Classplus claims to have onboarded over 3K institutes across 50 cities
The company offers a software suite for coaching institutes as well as courses for students
Delhi-NCR based edtech startup Classplus has raised a fresh Series A funding round from existing and new investors as edtech gains traction in the lockdown period.
According to ministry of corporate affairs filings accessed by Inc42, the company floated an offer to raise INR 73 Cr ($9.6Mn) on April 16, of which it has received INR 62.57 Cr ($8.2 Mn) in the round. Classplus has issued 10415 Series B preference shares at a nominal value of INR 100 with a premium of INR 59,975.93 per share.
It has also allotted an additional equity stake for one share at a nominal value of INR 10 with a premium of INR 60,065.93 per share to new investor RTP Global. Besides RTP, other investors include Blume Ventures, Sequoia’s Surge Ventures, and Strive Ventures.
The investment comes in after the company raised $2.5 Mn in Pre-Series A round from Blume Ventures with other investors in February. It has earlier raised funding from Times Internet as well.
Founded in 2018 by Mukul Rustagi and Bhaswat Agarwal, Classplus provides mobile-first software for coaching institutes, tuition centres and private tutors take their traditionally offline class management setups online.
The Classplus software suite can handle class communication, payments, assessments, online learning programmes and attendance. This allows the management to focus on the educational side of the business while reducing their time spent on managing other aspects of the business. The product also helps its clients to act as an online content repository and distribution platform.
The edtech startup claims to have onboarded over 3K institutes across 50 cities and gets traction from 500K students in India regularly. Classplus was one of the 30 startups that Inc42 had selected for its monthly watchlist in April 2020.
While many edtech startups are only focussed on learning experience and on students, Classplus wants to tap digital tools to improve productivity for tutors as well as students. The coaching management solution helps classes digitise student performance records and fee payments. For students, the startup provides online tests, lessons and multimedia educational content. It charges coaching centres an annual subscription fee, which unlocks the full suite of features.
As per The Future Of India’s $2 Bn Edtech Opportunity Report 2020 by DataLabs by Inc42, the Indian online education market is expected to become a $1.96 Mn opportunity, rising from $247 Mn in 2017.
According to DataLabs by Inc42, between January 2014 and September 2019, more than 4,450 edtech startups have been launched in India.
Update: May 4, 2020| 1 PM
After the story was published, the company confirmed that it has raised Series A funding round. CEO Mukul Rustagi told us that fresh funding will be used towards working on product and technology, with plans to collaborate with publishers as well.
