Toppr sees traffic surge during lockdown; upskilling courses in high demand

Edtech firms have seen a surge in growth in terms of new users and engagement during the Covid-19 induced lockdown. While Byju’s, Unacademy and Vedantu have been grabbing all the limelight, Toppr has seen a rapid surge in traffic during the lockdown.

The Mumbai-based firm, which was ranked 8th in the pre-Covid period till March 18, has now grabbed the 4th position in terms of traffic post the announcement of lockdown, shows data provided by market intelligence platform SimilarWeb for 28 days till April 29.

The rise in the number of people logging in is a welcome sign for the Zishaan Hayath-led firm which was out of the top 10 list till late 2019. Surprisingly, Udemy has become the top traffic puller in the list. The US-headquartered online learning and global marketplace had entered India in March last year.

It looks like skilling courses offered by educators on Udemy for working professionals have become popular in India in the past 6-8 weeks. A large chunk of employees fear layoffs or furloughs and they have been prioritising to acquire new skills.

Hayath announced the development on Twitter quoting SimilarWeb’s report which was part of  an analysis on the top 35 e-learning websites based in India.

World’s most valued edtech company Byju’s got the 2nd position while Unacademy was ranked 5th. Besides Udemy, Coursera is another overseas edtech firm which has managed to enter the top five list with highest traction in India during the lockdown.

Tiger Global-backed Vedantu, which was at the top in the pre-Covid period, has slipped to 7th position. Among the Indian startups, Toppr was only behind Byju’s in terms of monthly traffic.

The rise in adoption of e-learning platforms is natural as offline institutes, schools and universities are shut after the spread of the coronavirus. Educational setups, irrespective of shape and sizes, have been thronging to online platforms to engage students. Parents are also rushing to online solutions as they are left with no options.

According to the report, India has seen maximum searches for online courses post lockdown showing a realisation of upskill among users. Python seems to be favorite among languages to learn and Data Science and Machine Learning have been a trending topic over months.

The report further highlighted that edtech firms, which have seen monthly visits of around 102.2 million, now recorded 128.8 million in the 28 days of lockdown till April 29. The overall engagement has seen an increase of 8.5% during the period.

As far as funding, valuation and limelight are concerned, Byju’s, Unacademy and Vedantu have been dominating the segment for the past couple of years. While Byju’s was valued at about $8.2 billion in the last round and may become a decacorn in the upcoming fundraise, Unacademy was valued at $510 million in February 2020.

Vedantu was valued at about $280 million in its last funding round and Toppr was reportedly valued at $150-200 million during its $35 million funding round in December 2018. Since then, the startup has not raised any fresh round.