Google-backed edtech startup Cuemath gets Series C cheque; LGT Lightstone Aspada, Alpha Wave lead round

Google-backed online maths learning startup Cuemath has raised $40 million in Series C funding. The round was led by LGT Lightstone Aspada and the Alpha Wave Incubation Fund managed by New York-based Falcon Edge Capital Capital. Existing investors Manta Ray Ventures, Sequoia, and Google’s growth fund CapitalG also participated in the round, according to the regulatory documents sourced from business intelligence platform Tofler. The company had issued 1,44,618 shares at Rs 20,518 each. Founded in 2013, the startup has so far raised $24.5 million, according to deal tracker Crunchbase. The startup, prior to the current round and as of September 30, 2020, was valued at nearly $96 million, according to the regulatory documents.

Along with online math learning for students in grades 1 to 10, Cuemath also offers online coding classes and competes with large horizontal incumbents including Byju’s, Toppr, etc for maths learning. The year 2020 has proven to be a godsend for edtech startups in India that have been growing at a relatively slower pace than in the past seven-eight months as physical offline coaching was halted amid Covid scare. Byju’s, Toppr, Unacademy, and many more have been able to raise millions of dollars like never before and acquired students who were pushed to digital learning due to the pandemic.

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India’s online education market, which stood at $250 million back in 2016, is likely to be worth $1.96 billion, as per Statista. The market is further looking up on the back of growth in higher education and lifelong learning segments. The total addressable markets for the two segments are likely to grow from $400 million and $100 million in FY20 to $3.6 billion and $1.2 billion respectively in FY25, according to data from RedSeer. The combined growth in two areas is stipulated to be around 10X to approximately $5 billion.

The growth in edtech segment also comes amid the newly unveiled National Education Policy 2020 that focused on ending “the fragmentation of higher education by transforming higher education institutions into large multidisciplinary universities, colleges, and HEI clusters/Knowledge Hubs, each of which will aim to have 3,000 or more students,” according to the policy document. The government had said that the structure and lengths of degree programmes will be adjusted accordingly, for instance, the undergraduate degree will be of either 3 or 4-year duration, with multiple exit options within this period, with appropriate certifications.