Exclusive: Vedantu in talks with KKR and existing investors to raise $100 Mn

Amid heightened demand, education technology startup Vedantu is in talks to raise a new round of funding. The online tutoring firm is in talks with KKR along with existing investors Tiger Global and GGV Capital to raise $100 million, say two people familiar with the matter. The talks, however, are at an early stage and no term sheet has been given yet.

This comes just a few months after Vedantu closed a $100 million round led by Coatue Management. While the company claimed a $600 million valuation in the Series D round that also had a little secondary component, Fintrackr estimates showed that it was valued at $510 million.

“The talks have been on for the past month and Vedantu could be valued in the range of $850-900 million,” said one of the sources on condition of anonymity. If the transaction goes through, this would be a 3X jump in the company’s valuation in just seven months.

Vedantu has declined to offer comment for the story. A Tiger Global spokesperson said they will let us know should they have a comment. GGV Capital and KKR didn’t respond to Entrackr’s queries sent on Wednesday. We will update the story as and when they respond.

Vedantu had raised $7 million in an extended Series C round from KB Global at a valuation of $280 million. Vedantu’s core offering covers online classes covering grade 6 to 12. It also has study materials from grade 1 to 12 and JEE entrance examinations. In an interview with TechCrunch in July, CEO Vamsi Krishna said Vedantu serves 25 million students each month and that the startup has added 2 million students during the lockdown earlier this year. 

Importantly, Vedantu also ventured into kids coding space (age bracket 6-12) in May this year and since then it has been widely marketing it. Of late, the ‘kids coding vertical’ has been one of the anchors in the fundraising of all edtech platforms. Early this year, Byju’s had acquired segment leader Whitehat Jr in an eye-popping deal worth $300 million cash.

This year has had a great run for edtech companies in India. Byju’s alone cornered over $1 billion in 2020 while Unacademy entered into the coveted unicorn club with a recent round from SoftBank. Toppr, Doubtnut, ClassPlus, Lido Learning, Uable, Camp K12, Testbook, Flinto and others have also raised substantial funding in the past 10 months.