Lido Learning bags Rs 30 Cr from Juneja Family, VSS Investco and others

Mumbai-based startup Lido Learning, which conducts online coaching in Maths, Science, English and coding genres to children of grade 4 to 9, has raised Rs 29.5 crore from about a dozen investors including angels and family offices in its ongoing Seed-1 funding round.

The company has allotted 1,33,410 Seed 1 CCPS for Rs 2,208.14 per share to raise the fresh tranche, regulatory filings show. Juneja Family and Rishabh Marivalla led the tranche with investments of Rs 8.5 crore and Rs 7 crore respectively. 

Nidhi Arora has invested Rs 3.5 crore whereas Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s VSS Investco, S.Chand & Co, Sanjay Kapoor and Felix Ohswald have poured in Rs 1 crore each.

Mukesh Bansal has infused Rs 75 lakh while a few other angels collectively poured in Rs 5.7 crore. According to Fintrackr’s estimate, Lido has been valued at around Rs 255 crore or $35 million in the second tranche of Seed-1 round. In April, the company had raised Rs 46.5 crore in the first tranche of its Seed-1 funding round.

BAce Capital had led the first tranche with an investment of Rs 23.8 crore followed by Picus and early backer Ronnie Screwvala. The two had joined the round with investments of Rs 6.04 crore and  Rs 2.5 crore respectively.

Post allotment of the latest tranche, founder Sahil Sheth remains the largest stakeholder in Lido, controlling 46.75% stake followed by UpGrad founder Screwvala who holds 15.19% stake. BAce capital continues to hold 9.39% whereas Juneja Family Trusts (Rajeev and Ramesh) hold around 3.35% stake.

While the company was reportedly in talks with Bytedance too for funding, there was no mention of this in the filings. 

The scope of online learning has increased multifold as offline institutions have been closed since the last week of March due to the pandemic. As a result, large investors, venture capitalists and angels have been bullish about the segment. 

Segment leader Byju’s has had a great year as it added over $3 billion in its valuation. Besides Flipkart, it’s the only company to raise over $1 billion in 2020. Sequoia-backed Unacademy also turned into a unicorn with a $150 million round led by SoftBank in September.

Vedantu too has raised $100 million at a valuation of over $500 million. Classplus and Toppr also raked in significant proceeds whereas Cuemath is in its last leg to close a 40 million financing led by Falcone Edge’s AWI. 

Interestingly, the ‘kids coding vertical’ has been one of the anchors in the fundraising of all these platforms and many players in this segment are now leading with this ‘lucrative’ offering in their bouquet to catch the eye of potential investors.