Lead School becomes year’s first edtech unicorn after USD 100 mn funding

Edtech firm Lead School has raised USD 100 million in a funding round led by GSV Ventures and WestBridge Capital. After the latest fundraise, the ten-year-old startup ‘s valuation soared to USD 1.1 billion making it the third unicorn of the year 2022 after direct-to-consumer brand Mamaearth and Fractal, an artificial intelligence firm.




The Mumbai-based firm joins Byju’s, Unacademy, Eruditus, UpGrad and Vedantu as the sixth edtech unicorn of India. will use the funds to achieve its vision of providing quality affordable education to 25 million+ students with an annual revenue run rate of $1 billion.

Founded in 2012 by a couple Sumeet Mehta and Smita Deorah, Lead School works with thousands of K-12 schools offering integrated curriculum and technology solutions, enabling them to impart advanced education through an online or hybrid model. It also claims to integrate its platform to help children from low-income families secure books and other resources from vendors directly, thereby cutting middlemen. The company reportedly works with over 5,000 schools across 500 cities in India. It also claims to have achieved an annual contract value of $80 million in the fiscal year 2022.

Also Read: Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G with triple rear cameras, Exynos 2100 SoC launched in India

LEAD Co-founders Sumeet Yashpal Mehta and Smita Deorah said, “A child spends six hours in school and only one hour in tuitions. Transforming schools, when done right, has massive potential to alter our country’s future. LEAD, with its integrated school system has broken new ground in this direction. We believe that in edtech, Saraswati precedes Lakshmi. The nine-year-old startup has raised $166 million to date, with $30 million coming in from the Series D round raised in April last year.