At a time when so many edtech firms in India are attempting to cut their reliance on teachers, a Noida-based startup that is helping teachers and creators operate, manage and sell courses to students has raised $70 million in a new financing round. Classplus is now worth $570 million.
The four-year-old startup said that Alpha Wave Global and Tiger Global co-led the Series D round. The startup received $65 million in Series C funding eight months ago. It said in a statement that the new round doubled the startup's valuation.
There are millions of teachers in India who teach in small towns. They are popular with students in their own localities. Their offline coaching is doing well.
These teachers have had a hard time reaching students living a few miles from them. With the advent of cheap mobile data, some teachers are experimenting with a variety of tools to record, stream and monetize their lessons. The experience of using so many tools is confusing.
Classplus comes into the picture.
Classplus enables these teachers and small institutions to stream, distribute, sell and manage their classes online through just one platform.
The platform took off as educators were able to use it to become brands and make more money. He said that they were able to reach more students than ever before.
Rustagi says things changed for the better for Classplus when creators, artists, fitness and lifestyle experts and others started to use the platform to sell their courses to their audiences.
He said that there are both academic and non-academic educators on the platform.
Classplus is confident that it can serve the creator economy, because of the vote of confidence from creators. They are able to monetize on Classplus. They don't have to work with many business-to-business vendors. He said that they were offering them a one-stop shop for everything.
instant feedback from their students is also received by the startup, which has built and designed the tools in-house. They have access to the data that shows how many students attended their classes.
They can use the platform to generate previews of their classes. Just like how you have trailers in movies and shows, these teachers have their own.
Rustagi said that one of the reasons Classplus has been able to make inroads outside of urban India is because of the localization of content. He said that students here want to learn from people they can relate to.
Classplus has amassed over 100,000 teachers and creators from over 3000 towns and cities of India. Almost all of the creators live outside of Indian cities. The startup said that these customers can increase their profitability by two to three times within six months.
Over the last few years, Classplus has established itself as a market leader and has created a highly differentiated and sophisticated technology product, while building a robust management team.
We like that the company can cater to the large offline market of educators, and we also see a significant improvement in end tutor economics as a result of using Classplus. Our investment in this round is double down on Classplus.
The firm plans to use the funds to go deeper in smaller Indian cities and towns and broaden its product offerings to further enrich a teacher and creator's needs. Classplus is expanding to some international markets.
We will be investing in new acquisitions and partnerships that will allow us to continue delivering best-in-class experience to the educators and help them create an impact in the education system by building bigger and stronger businesses.
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