The instant live tutoring startup Filo has raised $23 million in Series A funding led by Anthos Capital in what is reportedly the largest Series A round in the Indian edtech space.
The round also saw participation from existing investor Better Capital along with GSV, Sapling Capital, and a host of well-known individual investors including Gokul Rajaram, Rob Frohwein (Co-founder, Kabbage), Mate Pencz and Florian Hagenbuch (Founders, Loft), and Ross Lipson (Co-founder, Dutchie).
The funding will be used for product development as it goes deeper into modelling pedagogy at scale, expanding the team, tapping new categories, and scaling its tutor base across the country.
Imbesat Ahmad, Founder and CEO of Filo, said, “At Filo, we are extremely passionate about technology and how it can help students achieve their goals. One of the biggest challenges students face in their journey is learning gaps, which become visible when they are attempting to solve problems on their own. Quick resolutions at this time, when they are fully involved, smoothens their path extensively. However, building a solution like this requires deep engineering and AI capabilities; which is what we have been working on for the last 1.5 years."
He added, "We have also proven a cash-efficient high pull model which is a first of its kind in the current edtech space. This round of funding will give exponential pace to an already hyper-growth trajectory of Filo and help us scale the tech and innovation opportunities. We are glad our investors share a similar vision for Filo as our leadership team. The combined strategic synergies will help us realise our mission to make the concept of ‘instant live tutoring’ a success worldwide.”
In almost a year, Filo has grown to more than 1.5 million downloads and more than 350,000 monthly active users along with overwhelming student reviews. The 24X7 live platform is present in more than 15 countries and has over 40,000+ tutors on the platform, which is by far the largest pool of tutors in the world.
Annie Luchsinger, VP, Anthos Capital said, “We are excited about Filo because of their unique value proposition to students that has resulted in rapid traction and outstanding customer advocacy. Their ability to effectively and seamlessly match teachers and students in a matter of seconds we believe to be unmatched in the market today and is a use case that can extend globally. We're thrilled to partner with Imbesat and the Filo team.”
In the next 12 months, the platform plans to onboard over 200,000 tutors across India and conduct 2 million live classes every day. The company raised a pre-seed round at the idea stage and then a $2 million seed round in September 2021 — both from Better Capital, while still working in stealth mode.
Filo was founded by serial entrepreneurs Imbesat Ahmad, Shadman Anwer, and Rohit Kumar, who are passionate about delivering high-quality education experiences at scale.
Vaibhav Domkundwar, Founder and CEO of Better Capital, said, “Filo solves the most crucial “understanding problem” in education with a unique product experience that worked almost right away giving us instant validation on multiple fronts. I’ve been impressed with the quality of execution and am excited to see Filo continue to scale its platform to serve millions of students.”
Edited by Saheli Sen Gupta