Indian EdTech Startup Lido Learning Raises $10 Mn

Sahil Sheth, CEO & Founder Lido Learning

Leading Indian edtech startup Lido Learning has raised $10 million, led by Ronnie Screwvala’s Unilazer Ventures.

The small group, online tuitions company has seen phenomenal growth and is currently on track to reach a $100M run rate by end of the financial year. Lido Learning currently offers tuitions in Maths, Science, and English aligned with the CBSE and ICSE for students from KG to Grade 12.

The company plans to use this new round of capital to fuel its aggressive expansion plans in India as well as abroad. Lido Learning’s first-ever TV advertising campaign will go live during the IPL season, along with the launch of its free user app to give students access to free curriculum-aligned video content for life.

Speaking about the funding, Sahil Sheth, Founder and CEO, Lido Learning, said, “Lido is the first in the country to recognise the power of learning in small groups, while being enabled by technology, for faster learning and success. We’re going to use this new round of capital to ensure that our classes are accessible to students from every corner of India as well as the world. We’re going to double down on our efforts to connect students with India’s exceptionally well-qualified and dedicated teaching talent.”

Ronnie Screwvala, Founder of Unilazer Ventures, said, “Lido is the first mover in the small-group, online tuitions space. The company has differentiated itself from the start from all other players that primarily offer self-directed learning or large-group classes. Lido’s strategy of immersive learning and rewarding positive learning outcomes has ensured that it is best-positioned to consolidate the $15B neighbourhood tuition market.”

Earlier this week, Lido Learning announced its entry into the US and Canada with its flagship coding program using the ‘Pair Learning’ methodology, with just two students per teacher to facilitate faster learning, deeper interactions, and real-time problem-solving. Lido’s coding curriculum lays great focus on empowering students to combine coding with their own individual passions, to create learning experiences that are fun and memorable. It helps students learn and practise critical-thinking and problem-solving skills in real-time, instead of focussing purely on programming skills.

Plans are also in place to launch in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia in early 2022, in addition to its existing Middle-Eastern, American, and Canadian operations. As well as to introduce classes in all these geographies in the other subjects already being offered by the edtech at home.


Lido Learning has so far raised $20 million from marquee institutional investors such as Alibaba-backed BACE Ventures, Rocket Internet-backed Picus Capital, and 9 Unicorns along with leading entrepreneurs like Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Mukesh Bansal, Anupam Mittal, Ananth Narayanan, amongst others.

About LIDO Learning:

Founded in 2019, Lido Learning is the first-mover in small-group online tutoring in India's K-12 segment. The company currently offers classes in Maths, Science, Coding and English, for students from KG to Grade 12. Designed by experts from Stanford, Harvard, and IITs, Lido classes have just 6 students in a class, and uses a combination of AI, immersive curriculum, and gamification to ensure success for every child. The company’s pioneering ACE program guarantees improved test results within just 8 months of classes.

Ant Financial-backed BAce Capital leads $7.5M Series B round in Lido Learning to expand its offering to Indian students

Lido Learning, an ed-tech startup focusing on live online tutorials, has just closed a $7.5M Series B round. The round is led by Ant Financial-backed BAce Capital, and completes the ed-tech startup’s overall funding at $10.5 million. Existing investors also participated in the round.

Amid the Covid-19 pandemic and with a growing number of parents exploring distance learning as an option for their children, Lido fills the crucial need for technology that connects expert teachers to students across the country. Launched in April 2019, Lido aims to solve the one-size fits all approach to education in India through live, small group, highly interactive, online tutorials led by expert tutors. Every student on Lido has a unique learning journey with 1:6 tutorials and customized homework, with their own academic mentor.

Within a year, Lido has built a rapidly growing customer base across all major cities while offering Math and Science tutorials for Classes 5-9 in ICSE and CBSE syllabus. With the new funding, Lido plans to build a presence in Tier II and Tier III towns to democratize high quality education across India; and expand into more curriculum focused subjects, as well as 21st-century skills like analytical thinking, critical reasoning, communication, collaboration, and creativity.

“The first time I met the Lido team, I realized this is not just another startup, but a strong team with a united vision to provide every Indian family with equal and better quality education that they deserve,” said Benny Chen, Managing Partner at BAce Capital. “In just a couple of months, Lido has built a community of students, tutors and parents leveraging its technology to make education more accessible, and improve the interaction between students and tutors significantly through measuring learning results."

“We are excited for this next stage of growth, as online tutorials are going to take off in a big way in India. With high-speed internet penetration, the tech infrastructure is ready; and as more students and parents experiment with online learning in the current pandemic, the customer mindset is ready“, said founder and CEO, Sahil Sheth. “At Lido, we want to make sure the online tutorial experience is significantly better than what you can get offline. That is why from day one we have been focused on building extreme personalization for every student’s needs, with AI and advanced analytics, while still keeping the fun of going to tuition classes with friends, and having a teacher in a small group format who motivates and coaches. Our vision is to build 250 million unique learning journeys for 250 million unique Indian students, and we are constantly striving to get there."

Lido is BAce Capital’s first ed-tech investment in India, as part of a strategy to continue investing in early stage companies in emerging economies, focusing on India and Southeast Asia.

“During the tough season of a global pandemic and in the years after, BAce is committed in supporting Lido to deliver the best quality tutoring services to Indian families.” said Chen.

Edtech Startup Lido Learning Raises $3 Mn from Paytm Exec, Picus Capital, others

Ed-tech platform Lido Learning on Monday said it has raised USD 3 million from Rocket Internet founder Alex Samwer-backed Picus Capital and Paytm President Madhur Deora, among others.

The Mumbai-based company had previously raised USD 3 million in November last year led by investors like Ronnie Screwvala, Ananth Narayanan, Vikrampati Singhania and others.

"Lido Learning is actively disrupting the K-12 market. Considering the current global pandemic, learning online has become the need of the hour. This is pulling the Indian market towards adopting online tutorials much faster than initially expected and is a huge tailwind enabling us to become a dominant category creator within a short span of time," Lido Learning founder and CEO Sahil Sheth said in a statement.

Lido Learning provides live, interactive tutoring sessions to students and parents that push learning outcomes through a 6:1 student-teacher ratio, frontier technologies, and personalised content. It is expanding from metros to Tier II and Tier III cities.

According to a Google and KPMG report, primary and secondary supplementary education will be the largest category in online education by 2021 growing at a CAGR of 60 per cent.

"The tremendous growth in the months since launch has proved the great product-market fit they have found. We are excited to be a part of the vision of improving the access to and quality of education - one of India's largest and most important sectors - together with such a strong team," Florian Reichert, partner at Picus Capital, said in a statement.

Lido Learning is Picus' first investment in the education-technology space and one of its first in India. PTI SR

Ed-Tech Startup Lido Learning Appoints Nishu Goyal as CTO

Mumbai-based ed-tech start-up Lido Learning appoints Nishu Goyal as their Chief Technology Officer (CTO) who will be based out of their Mumbai office. Nishu brings over 12 years of experience to Lido Learning. In the CTO position, Goyal will be responsible for evolving Lido’s technology strategy and driving product innovation.

The announcement comes after Lido Learning receives its Series A funding of $3million. Goyal joins Lido after serving as CTO for online healthcare start-up PharmEasy, where he played an integral role in building their tech platform from scratch. He has also previously held the Senior Vice President position at global e-commerce retailer Fab.com, a platform catering to everyday design, wearable technology, furniture and lifestyle products where he led the engineering team. Goyal has completed his education from the prestigious IIT Madras with an integrated dual degree with both B.Tech and M.Tech. He has also taken up doubt-solving classes and academic counselling for students in a coaching institute.

“Nishu’s previous experience and technical expertise make him the ideal choice to lead Lido Learning. Since ed-tech is becoming increasingly technology-focused and software-centric, to succeed, we had to build an interactive virtual classroom environment that runs in low bandwidth and on low-cost devices. Nishu will play a vital role in the planning and execution of Lido Learning’s technology roadmap while focusing on security and site integrity, data compliance, core architecture and testing. I’m delighted to welcome Nishu on board and look forward to his contribution towards making Lido Learning the go-to destination for aspiring students.” said Sahil Sheth, Founder and CEO of Lido Learning.

“Education develops in us a perspective of looking at life. It helps us build opinions and have points of view on things in life. There is a certain excitement and thrill in building something from square one and I look forward to applying my experience and technical abilities at Lido Learning to enhance the experience of students that look towards us to transform their learning abilities. The time for ed-tech companies has finally arrived in India. With the sector gaining immense traction already, technology has made a big impact in revolutionizing the education market, facilitating and improving learning with ease and time. It is an exciting start for me and I am hoping to deliver my best along with the Lido family.” said Nishu Goyal.

Lido Learning (Quality Tutorials Pvt Ltd) was launched in April 2019 by Sahil Sheth, offering live tutoring and personalized online coaching sessions to students from Class 5-9 in Math and Sciences from both CBSE and ICSE boards.