Exclusive: Tiger Global to invest $25 Mn in Classplus

Tiger Global has turned out to be a chief unicorn maker for Indian startups this year by backing nine out of 14 unicorns that were birthed in 2021. Apart from investing in growth-stage companies at lofty valuations, it has also been sourcing small size deals. 

Tiger Global had led under $30 million rounds in Plum, Koo and CoinSwitch Kuber.

On similar lines, Tiger Global is likely to join the ongoing funding round of edtech startup Classplus. According to three Entrackr sources, Tiger is in late-stage talks to invest around $20-25 million in the Noida-based venture which enables online channels for coaching institutes and educators. 

“The two have been in talks for about several weeks and contours of the transaction have been finalised,” said one of the sources requesting anonymity.

Sources further say that the steep growth of Classplus coupled with its dominance in the category has driven investor confidence. The company competes with Teachmint and Google-backed Cuemath, among others.

Classplus had raised a $30 million round led by GSV and existing backers such as Falcon Edge. Entrackr had exclusively reported this on April 28. Since May last year, the company has raised $48 million across two institutional rounds. Blume Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Surge are its early institutional backers. 

Classplus digitises offline coaching institutes and teachers by enabling technology, communication, practice tests, payments channels and learning programmes for them. 

The valuation of the six-year-old company is likely to be in the range of $200-210 million, according to the second source who also requested anonymity as details are private.

Queries sent to Classplus and Tiger Global didn’t elicit any immediate response. We will update the story in case they do.

Tiger Global has been an active investor in the edtech space. If the deal gets through, Class plus would be its fourth investment. It is an investor in Byju’s, Unacademy and Vedantu.

Investor confidence around edtech companies has been strong for a while and the euphoria around the segment is unlikely to subside this year as well. Companies in the space have already cornered over $3.5 billion since the beginning of 2020. Apart from Classplus, poster boys Byju’s and Unacademy are also in talks to mop up new rounds.