Toppr Bags $47 Mn To Expand Code-Learning Platform Codr, School OS

Mumbai-based edtech startup Toppr has raised INR 350 Cr or nearly $46.7 Mn in Series D funding round led by Foundation Holdings, whose managing partner Aakash Sachdev will join the board of the company. Existing investor Kaizen Private Equity also participated in this round.

With this fundraise, the company has raised a cumulative amount of INR 700 Cr ($93 Mn) and will use the funds to fuel its adaptive core AI learning platform that has over 1.3 Cr registered students.

Besides this, the fund will also be used in launching a new platform for coding Toppr Codr, and as well as a school management system, Toppr School OS. School OS allows schools to run digitally unify in-school and after-school learning to create a standardised and personalised experience.

Along with the Series D, the edtech giant is also raising funding from Kaizen in Series C rounds currently. Last month, Kaizen infused INR 14.99 Cr (nearly 2 Mn) in exchange for 23,779 Series C2 preference shares at face value of INR 5 with a premium of INR 6,303.07 per share. On Tuesday, it bought additional 11,900 Series C2 preference shares worth INR 7.50 Cr (nearly $1 Mn). Inc42 has accessed the regulatory filings of the company.

Kaizen was the fourth-largest investor in Toppr with 7.07% stake until June 2020, according to the ministry of corporate affairs filings. It followed SAIF Partners, Eight Roads Ventures and Helion Ventures with 16.57%, 15.92% and 15.68% stake, respectively. But with Series D and additional Series C2 investments, the current dynamics of shareholdings must have changed.

Founded in 2013 by Zishaan Hayath and Hemanth Goteti, Toppr started with courses for Class 11 and 12. It now offers adaptive learning for Class 5 to 12 and also competitive exams like JEE. In February 2016, Toppr also acquired edtech startup Manch. The company is pursuing aggressive expansion plans, to reach out to students across the country.

Toppr claims to have a community of more than 50K educators from across, contributing to over 35 lakh learning pieces, including questions, solutions, concepts, games and videos for the students, and host over 1 Mn sessions every day.

According to DataLabs By Inc42+, Indian online learning market is expected to be worth $1.96 Bn by 2021. According to 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. However, in the 28 days post-lockdown, the traffic share shifted towards MOOC platforms like Udemy (17.81%) and Coursera (10.10%) and Toppr (8.81%).

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