At last, let’s look at the key players from the existing market bringing the change.
Brainly
The company was found in 2009 by Michal Borkowski, Lukasz Haluch, and Tomasz Kraus. The platform offers a learning community for students to discuss and solve their academic problems. The platform is operational in more than 35 countries, including India facilitating a global platform for exchanging knowledge. The platform is used by more than 150 million users monthly. It offers diverse languages, including Hindi, Sanskrit, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati, Kannada, and Bengali, to make its material accessible to a broader audience. The company has raised a total funding sum of $148.5M in over six rounds, the latest being Series-D on Dec 17, 2020.
Doubtnut
The company was found in 2017 by IIT Delhi Alumni Tanushree Nagori and Aditya Shankar. The platform aims to bridge the EdTech gap in smaller cities by offering 12 vernacular languages. By doing so, they have been able to tap into a vast market seeking such solutions. The company claims to have more than 1.2 million users daily. The app has built a large user base in such a short period because of its services ahead of EdTech offerings in the industry. Doubtnut uses artificial intelligence for image recognition and provides solutions to mathematical problems in multiple languages. It caters to students of classes 6-12, IIT JEE, and Bitsat. The company is based out of Gurugram and raised its latest Series-B funding in February 2021, amounting to $49.9 Million.
Classplus
Looking at the scope of the standardising coaching sector in the country, Classplus attempted to enhance and organise the learning experience for students taking coaching classes. This Noida based startup was found in 2018 by Mukul Rustagi and Bhaswat Agarwal. It is a mobile-first SaaS platform that enables private coaching institutes and their tutors to streamline their content distribution, payments, communication, and online assessments through an app. As per the company, more than nine-tenths of the platform’s content is vernacular, which explains their vast user base and presence around the country. Within 15 months of its launch, the company has built a user base with over 1,200 coaching centres as its clients in more than 50 cities across India. It has a presence in cities like Kanpur, Bhopal, Gwalior, and Srinagar and facilitates student and parent engagement, multimedia content distribution, payments, and online tests on a single platform. The company raised a total of $24.2M funding in over eight rounds, the latest being a Series A round on Sep 22, 2020.
eDelta
eDelta is created by academicians and professionals catering academic needs of learners from school and competitive exams, future skills and professional courses, and global advantage. The platform provides STEM education innovatively and engagingly in English, Hindi and Kannada. The company’s learning outcome-based and skill mapped education model has garnered much appreciation from NITI Aayog (India’s apex federal planning body). The company primarily operates in north India and is based out of Noida. The platform’s vernacular learning solutions are also integrated into a few organisations’ delivery models in the country’s southern and north-eastern regions. The company claims to have clocked up 100 School Partner Programs with AIC – BIMTECH and also collaborated with open network schools to deliver its e-learning resources to over 150,000 students.
Pariksha
Pariksha is based out of Pune, founded by Deepak Choudhary, Karanvir Singh Shekhawat, Utkarsh Bagri, and Vikram Shekhawat back in 2015. The platform is reputed in the industry for its online vernacular test preparation services. Candidates preparing for government examinations will find the platform to be their one-stop solution. The languages available on the platform include Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Bengali, Kannada and English. The company claims to have around 2 million users currently, with 60,000 paid subscribers on its platform. The company has raised a total of $6.1M funding in over seven rounds, the latest being a Seed round on Feb 17, 2021.
eSense learning
Based out of Mumbai, eSense Learning Pvt. Ltd is an initiative of Navneet Education Ltd, a digital education company providing e-learning solutions to India’s schools and students. Reaching to communities at the grassroots level. eSense learning offers edtech solution in English, Gujarati and Marathi to over 3,500 schools in Maharashtra and Gujarat.
eSense’s flagship e-learning solution is TOPClass. It’s an innovative Smart Classroom solution that comes with syllabus-based content simplifying the teaching process and adding value to the school students’ learning experience. The solution is ideal schools with for Maharashtra State Board (MSB), Gujarat State Board (GSB) and Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) Pattern and offers content in English, Marathi and Gujarati Medium. The product is presently being used by over 4,000 schools and has enabled the training of 75,000 teachers.
Entri
Founded by Mohammed Hisamuddin and Rahul Ramesh in 2017, Entri is a Boston-based EdTech accelerator LearnLaunch. It is a local language learning app that provides varied learning content like mock/adaptive tests, flashcards, and video lessons in local languages for job aspirants. The app started from Kerala with the Malayalam language, now offers multiple languages like Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, and Hindi on its platform. The company claims to have 1.6 million users so far, with an addition of 6,000 users every day. Entri has raised a total of $4.3M funding in over five rounds, the latest being a Seed round on Jul 23, 2020.
TABLAB By iDreamEducation
iDream education is a Gurgaon-based social EdTech startup offering a unique product TABLAB, which is a plug and play tablet-based digital learning lab custom-designed for government schools. iDream education was started by Puneet Goyal and Rohit Prakash in 2016, aiming to bridge the gap between technology availability in the public-school sector and its usage. The company collaborates with CSR, foundations, governments, and non-profits on the ground, delivering a set of tablets stacked in storage and charging rack, which is pre-loaded with several categories of quality local language content aggregated by multiple creators and aligned with the state board curriculum. TABLAB has been implemented in 13 states, impacting 18,000+ students in over 100 government schools and across multiple languages, including Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Urdu, and Bengali.
Their story is a must-read to understand the approach and impact of TABLAB.
Kutuki
Based out of Bengaluru by Sneha Sundaram, Kutuki is an early age learning platform ideal for kids between the ages of three and seven. The platform differs from others in the segment by offering tailor-made content for Indian pre-schoolers. Their cute animated characters Kutu, Ki and Minku, the elephant is adorable enough to engage your child in exciting learning activities and content. The platform has a range of varied learning resources, including 100s of engaging, high quality animated children’s storybooks, rhymes and interactive activities covering over 30 preschool themes such as Phonics, English and Hindi Letter Tracing, Physical Fitness, Animals, Space, Health and Hygiene, Safety, STEM, Colours and Shapes, Indian festivals, General Knowledge, Emotions and Feelings and more. The USP of the platform is the content that children will find familiar and relatable. Kutuki prides itself on creating contextual content that Indian children and families can connect with, moving away from characters with blonde hair, blue eyes, American accents and unfamiliar references. The content is available in English, Hindi, Marathi, Tamil and Kannada, with more languages being added soon.
Subhe eLearning
Found by Vivek and Jagrit Gupta in 2018, Subhe helps people acquire new skills by offering video-based online courses in Hindi. The platform has Micro Courses with a duration of up to 1-6 months and Master’s Program that are job-focused with a duration of more than six months. The course content is created with Industry Experts’ help, which includes video lectures, quizzes, assignments, and notes. The Delhi based platform raised one round of funding in January 2018.
Vidyakul
Founded in 2018, Vidyakul is one of its kind interactive vernacular e-learning platform. The platform allows educators to create online courses for K-12, JEE, NEET, AIIMS in tier-II & tier III cities. Vidyakul offers live lectures and pre-recorded courses (from Class 9th- 12th in Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, and Hinglish) to help state board students learn academics. The company witnessed that State boards Students are ten times more skilled than CBSE students, but when it comes to the quality of education, both in School & Online learning, they are far behind others due to the language’s mismatch. With this concern at hand, the core principle of founding Vidyakul is to target these students by offering a vernacular online problem-solving solution. The startup brings teachers, professionals and experts from different fields across India on their platform to contribute to a bigger vision of scalable literacy rate in the country, making educational resources available to all students. They are also preparing study material, video lectures, study notes & online tests by analysing the last ten years’ exam papers & NCERT books with the best teachers across India. Up until now, Vidyakul has raised only 1 round of funding. This was a Seed round raised on Aug 20, 2019.
GUVI
This online skilling platform is helping learners acquire programming skills in the language of their choice. Founded in 2014 by Arun Prakash, Bala Murugan, and Sridevi Arunprakash, GUVI stands for Grab Ur Vernacular Imprint and aims to deliver programming courses to Indian learners in their vernacular. They offer in demand technical skills in major Indian languages making learning more effective and meaningful. Their courses are conducted via videos in Indian languages such as Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Bengali. GUVI has raised a total funding of ₹70M in over 4 rounds latest being a Seed round on Apr 24, 2020.
3rdFlix
Found in 2018 by Subbarao Siddabattula, the company is changing the paradigms of EdTech. Their innovative approach toward including new age technology for learning needs of students makes it effective and engaging for students. The company is based out of Hyderabad and uses latest visualization technology to make education engaging for students. They use augmented reality, virtual reality, VFX, mixed reality, simulations with 3D models and advanced technology in all major languages to ensure that students learn while having a real time experience with their education. The company has raised a total funding of $5.7M in over 2 rounds, latest being a Seed round on Sep 4, 2019. Their userbase comprises of customers from Delhi, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh including Dr KKR’s Gowtham Educational Institutions, a chain of 28 schools.
Teachmint
Fund in 2020 by Anshuman Kumar, Divyansh Bordia, Mihir Gupta, and Payoj Jain, Teachmint is democratizing online education by making it accessible for all. The platform removes language barriers and offers vernacular and proprietary video solutions for teachers in 10 Indian languages other than English. The platform enables teachers to create a digital profile of every classroom they take. The company is based out of Bengaluru and has raised $40M funding over four rounds. The last round was a Series B raised on Jul 7, 2021.
NxtWave
NxtWave is a training platform for anyone aspiring for a tech career. The platform has used vernacular content to make it accessible for users who face language inhibitions. The platform offers vernacular training for 4.0 Tech Careers through Continuous Career Building Programs 4.0 (CCBP 4.0). With their courses, anyone can build 4.0 skills and get high-paid jobs centred around 4.0 technologies like AI, ML, Full Stack Development, Cybersecurity, IoT, VR/AR, Blockchain and more. Based out of Hyderabad, the company was found in 2020 by Anupam Pedarla, Rahul Attuluri, and Sashank Reddy Gujjula.
Braingroom
BrainGroom was found in 2015 by Madhula Sathyamoorthy and Naleine. Based out of Chennai, the platform offers multilingual online learning services and a jobs ecosystem for educational and skill development classes to make students job and life-ready. The platform features over 2000 hours of job-ready and technical skills courses in multiple languages, including Hindi, English, Tamil and Marathi. Students can also learn with bots in a gamified learning mode. The company has raised ₹15M in funding in a Pre-Seed round on Jul 19, 2021.
MicroDegree
MicroDegree offers online learning courses for job-ready skills in vernacular at an affordable price. Students and professionals can learn coding and other job-ready skills from industry experts in multiple languages. The platform is based out of Mangaluru, Karnataka and was found in 2019 by Manikanta Nair. The company has raised an undisclosed amount of funding in a seed round on Jun 22, 2021.
CareerAnna
CareerAnna was found in 2013 by Varun Saxena. This Bengaluru based platform enables students and professionals to learn in the language of choice and offers over 200 courses across MBA and UPSC Preparation and IPM for Test Prep. At present, the platform offers courses in English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu, with more native languages in the pipeline. The company has raised a total of ₹70M in over two rounds. Their latest funding was a seed round raised on Nov 30, 2018.
Padhio
Padhio is a microlearning platform that offers bite-size video learning content in vernacular. The platform aims to provide good quality and affordable education to one and all. The platform aims to help students grow holistically. Therefore, it allows educators to teach non-academic topics like critical thinking, life skills, general knowledge, etc., along with academic subjects. The platform covers over 200 topics and has a repository of over 1200 videos. More than 150 educators are on board, with a regular increase in the number. The platform is based out of Maharashtra and was found in 2019 by Anup Savale, Parul Sood, and Dhruv Goel.
