At EDUKWEST we have been documenting the rapid and astonishing edtech growth in India over the past four years. Within this short period of time India has managed to become one of the key global edtech markets.
The Indian edtech ecosystem is seeing benefits from various sides:
- there are now the first successful edtech entrepreneurs that have turned into active investors
- India has its first investment and VC funds dedicated to education technology, from seed stage to later stage,
- as well as a first edtech accelerator program
- the government has started to support and foster edtech as part of the Digital India agenda
EdTech Funding
All of the above has resulted into a staggering number of new edtech startups. In our latest EdTech Startup List India we feature over 200 of them, and these have raised more than a respectable $250 million in the last decade.
A general trend we see is that the number of rounds is steadily going up. There is no shortage for Indian edtech entrepreneurs to secure funding early on, namely seed funding and angel investment.
We have documented 21 rounds totaling in over $150 million invested for our Q1 report 2016 compared with $56 million invested in 30 rounds in H1 2015 and $80 m invested in 20 rounds in H1 2014.
Whereas there is a wide variety of popular verticals, there is a clear emphasis on building consumer-focused products or services in Indian edtech. We found it to be ⅔ consumer ⅓ enterprise.
Moreover, 66 out of 200 total startups have built a product or service for K-12, 49 for Higher Education, test / exam preparation (26) and continuing education (16) being of particular interest too.
EdTech Cities
One other thing that has become clear to us is that location is key. When you are an edtech founder in India and you want to build a successful product and raise money for your startups, there are only two cities to consider.
As said above we keep records on over 200 edtech startups in India, and 67 of which are operating out of Bengaluru (Bangalore), 56 are based in Delhi (New Delhi).
So, it looks like that Bengaluru and Delhi offer you the most value and opportunities if you want become a successful edtech founder in India.
Picture by UtkarshJah via Flickr