Toppr raises Rs 350 Cr Series D round led by Foundation Holdings

Edtech startup Toppr has raised Rs 350 crore in its Series D funding round led by Foundation Holdings. Existing backer Kaizen Private Equity also participated in the latest round.

The fresh investment in the Mumbai-based firm has come at a time when edtech startups have been actively raising funds including the likes of  Byju’s, Unacademy, Vedantu and ClassPlus.

Toppr had raised its previous round in December 2018 when it raked in a $35 million Series C financing from Kaizen Private Equity, Eight Roads Ventures, Helion Ventures and SAIF Partners. With the fresh capital infusion, Toppr has raised Rs 700 crore till date.

The Zishan Hayath-led firm will use these funds to fuel its growth and  launch new platforms for coding and schools, signalling a drift towards the Whitehat Jr model. 

A significant portion of this investment will also be deployed to develop after school focused learning products. With this round, the company also appears to be moving seriously towards an IPO. 

During and after the lockdown, edtech startups are much in demand as activities of schools and coaching classes were restricted since the last week of March. Byju’s, Unacademy, Vedantu and Toppr have been the go to platforms for students at a time when chances of opening up of offline learning centres look very bleak.

At present, Toppr claims to have over 1.3 crore registered students on its platform and has emerged as one of the highest traffic pullers among the K-12 learning segment. It claims to host over a million sessions every day. 

Foundation Holdings, that has led the Series D round, is a global investment firm focused on companies in the Gulf Cooperation Council for GCC and India. 

In a press statement, Foundation Holdings also revealed that its objective is to work with Toppr to ready it for a public listing in overseas stock exchanges including NASDAQ. 

While Toppr’s Series D round isn’t unusual as edtech companies are having a ball at the moment, participation of only one existing investor in the Rs 350 crore round is a bit surprising.