With the unprecedented times of the Covid 19, the one sector that has seen an exponential growth is the Ed-Tech sector. With the lockdown of many Indian metropolitan cities since the end March, online education and e-learning platform have seen an astonishing adoption and growth. This however, is not surprising because the educational institutions are shut making 1.5 billion students to resort to a variety of digital education sites like Toppr to ensure learning continues.
According to a report by BARC India and Nielson reveals that there has been a 30 percent increase in the time spent on education apps on smartphones since the lockdown. The Ed-tech sector is worth Rs 15,000 crore has been battling challenges with low B2C market penetration. The current condition has led to a surge in usage proving to be pivotal.
Edtech startups are attracting many more investors in the post Covid 19 world thanks to the increased adoption of digital learning during the lockdown. This time learning app Toppr, which focuses on students in the class 5 to 12 and has managed to raise Rs 350 crore in series round of funding. Toppr has so far raised Rs. 700 crore and currently competes with unicorn companies like Byju, Unacademy, Vedantu, Meritnation and more.
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A Brief About Toppr
Toppr is a Mumbai based Edtech startup Toppr has seen a 100% growth in paid users on a monthly basis, with free user engagement witnessing a 100% spike. The company was founded in 2013, the startup offers questions, solutions, concepts, practice tests and videos to students. It also prepares them for competitive entrance exams such as IIT-JEE mains, BITSAT and NEET.
| Company Name | Toppr |
|---|---|
| Headquaters | Mumbai, Maharashtra |
| Founded On | 2013 |
| CEO | Zishaan Hayath |
| Employees | 501-1000 |
| Annual Revenue | $13.2 Million |
| Products & Services | Toppr Learning App |
The platform has also announced free access to live classes and video classes. The CEO and Founder of Toppr is Zishaan Hyath says that, “In the view of evolving situation around the Covid 19 pandemic, many schools are shut, hence why we are making Toppr live classes completely free for all students in classes 5 to 12. Besides that, our video classes have always been available as a free learning resource.”
The subscriptions of Toppr
Toppr is also expected to boost its headcount across teams from the current 300 to 400 by the end of the year. The company has now emerged as the highest traffic destination for K-12 learning and hosts over 1 million session every day. The community of 50,000 educators from across the country has contributed to over 35 lakh learning pieces, including questions, solutions, concepts, games and videos curated for the students.
This is was because of their annual subscription for the academic year 2020 to 2021 on Toppr starts at Rs 20,000 which is cheaper than its competitors, as Vedantu annual subscription for all subjects for a class 10 student costs Rs 48,599. Given the high costs the penetration of Edtech platforms is limited, which is why Toppr decided to bring down the cost of their subscription to get more users to the platform.
They changed the product strategy and have created packages of shorter duration to help people tide over the current crisis. They now have a 3 month and six month package starting at just Rs 3000. Both Toppr and Byju’s have registered an increase in paid users during the lockdown, Toppr has seen a four-fold increase, while Byju’s has seen its paid subscriptions double.
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Educating its new users
Apart from the main product which is the school learning app the money will also go towards our product for teaching coding to kids and their school operating system (OS) built for teachers and administrators. Toppr School OS is an app for school and teachers through which they can map curriculum, plan lessons and mange class timetables, automate attendance, assign homework.
Toppr school is an artificial intelligence-based Operating System to run “in school” and “afterschool” learning, creating a standardized and personalized experience. This helps in continue to engage and explore various features and includes parents and students are trying online learning as a go to learning resources in these difficult times.
It also helps in taking tests, correct test papers, etc. during or after school hours to save time. On the other hand, the coding product which is called as Toppr codr launched recently is an opportunity of at least $50 million if let’s say the overall opportunity for us in a digital learning is at least $200 million.
The growth of Edtech firms
The Edtech firms have also taken to the digital media to acquire users and inform people about the free live classes on offer. There has been a 128% growth in digital ad spends by edtech apps during the lockdown, as per the BARC Nielson report. It is not just the big players spending on advertising as they are also getting more users abroad.
Amid covid there are more than a dozen Edtech startups including Byjus, vedantu camp K-12, etc, have raised funding as investors through platforms that have registered strong growth during the pandemic. For toppr too, Covid started discussions for the latest round of funding around a week before lockdown, the learning sessions on its app per month have grown two times from 14 to 15 million before covid to 32 million currently.
The startup already has around 60,000 students on its learning platform and is aggressively seeking to go on board as much as 2.4 lakh students in just a few weeks ahead. The Edtech segment is likely to be on a roll ahead as investors globally are expected to put $87 billion in the world market over the next 10 years. The Indian market is also believed to grow at over 20 per cent per annum to hit $2 billion size by 2021.
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The funding of Toppr
Toppr raised around $47 million, or about Rs 350 crore, in a growth funding round as edtech startups continue to benefit from the pandemic-driven online learning boom. A Dubai-based investment firm, Foundation Holdings, led the fresh investments into the Mumbai-based e-learning platform. Existing investors such as Kaizen Private Equity also participated, according to a statement. The latest funding round takes the total funds raised by the Edtech startup to about Rs 700 crore.
Author: PV Vyshnavi
Source : https://startuptalky.com/topprs-growth-pandemic/
Date : 2020-10-02T12:47:25.000Z