Exclusive: Ronnie Screwvala-backed Lido Learning shuts down operations

Edtech has been one of the top segments in terms of fundraising and gaining traction for the past couple of years, especially during the coronavirus pandemic. However, some startups in this space are also choosing to consolidate with larger groups or shut down their operations altogether. 

Lido Learning is one such example. The edtech startup backed by Ronnie Screwvala has shut down its operations, according to two people aware of the development.

“Lido Learning has shut its operations with a sudden notice over email to its employees. This is one of the bizarre overnight shutdowns in which employees had no idea about it until they received the email,” said one of the sources.

Lido Learning’s assistant marketing manager Rishabh Kumar had also posted a note on LinkedIn about the same.

“..Everthing was going well suddenly on 4 feb 2022 , an official townhall has been announced in the morning. The founder announced that organisations is having no funds to run its business and they are shutting it down,” mentioned Kumar in the post on the professional networking platform.

It’s worth mentioning that Lido Learning had raised $10 million in a round led by Ronnie Screwvala’s Unilazer Ventures in September last year. The Mumbai-based startup had also announced its entry into the U.S. and Canada during the same month and was planning to expand into India and overseas with the new funds.

The company used to offer live online tuition classes to students between classes KG to Class 9 in Math, Science, English, and coding from CBSE and ICSE boards. Its subscription started from Rs 50,000 and went up to Rs 140,000.

“The company had tried hard for a large financing round, however, it failed to convince new investors,” said the second source. As per an ET report, Lido Learning was in talks with Singapore-based Temasek to raise about $30 million.

Several vendors and employees of Lido Learning across social media have been complaining about payment dues and salary delays. Many such people also complained that the company has stopped responding to their messages.

Queries sent to Lido Learning did not elicit an immediate response. We’ll update the post in case they do.

Three-year-old 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.