Exclusive: Ronnie Screwvala to invest $5 Mn in Lido Learning

Edtech startup Lido Learning is raising around $5.5 million from UpGrad’s chairperson and co-founder Ronnie Screwvala and ZNL growth Fund. This will be the second investment for Screwvala in the Mumbai-based startup after first investing in November 2019.

Lido Learning has passed a special resolution to approve the allotment of 14,1493 Series Seed 2 preference shares at an issue price of Rs 2,880 per share to raise Rs 40.75 crore or $5.5 million, regulatory filings show.

While Screwvala will invest $5 million in the current tranche, ZNL growth Fund Scheme will be investing the remaining amount.  As of October 2020, Screwvala was the second-largest stakeholder in Lido Learning after the company’s founder Sahil Seth.

According to Fintrackr’s estimates, Lido Learning was valued at around $35 million as of October 2020. It’s worth mentioning that the startup was reportedly in talks with Temasek to raise around $30 million at a valuation of $100 million.

Lido Learning offers live online tuition classes to students between classes KG to Class 9 in Maths, Science, English, and coding from CBSE and ICSE boards. It’s subscription starts from Rs 50,000 to Rs 140,000.

The startup has also started expanding its offerings from metros to Tier II, Tier III cities and promoted the kids coding vertical as its anchor product offerings. It’s worth noting that all kids coding platforms have been able to catch the eye of potential investors in the past year. 

On Wednesday, Lido Learning launched its flagship coding program in the US and Canada and it is also planning to expand to the UK, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

Where Byju’s-owned WhiteHat Jr claims to be the default leader in this space, well funded and new-age startups including Vedantu, Toppr, Cuemath, Camp K12, Uable, Coding Ninjas among others also offer coding classes for kids.

Launched in 2019, Lido Learning had raised $7.5 million in its Series B round led by BAce Capital in October last year. Besides institutional investors, it also counts Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Narayan Ramachandran, Anupam Mittal, and Mukesh Bansal as its angel investors.