How homegrown ed-tech platforms are riding the Vocal for Local wave

While some ed-tech brands had been on a growth curve before COVID-19 struck this year, the pandemic and the subsequent nationwide lockdowns exacerbated the transition to online education. With schools and colleges shut for most part of the year, online classes have become the new mode of education and ed-tech brands have strived like never before.

Along with academic curriculum, there are ed-tech companies that are also catering to the needs for professional education and skill upgradation of the work force.

Some time back, Adgully had called for brands that went Vocal for Local this year. As part of this series, Adgully turns the focus on the ed-tech start-ups who have made the most of these challenging times and are thriving under the Government’s Vocal for Local drive. Let’s take a look at these ed-tech start-ups...

Also Read: Homegrown Video Apps riding the Vocal for Local wave

BYJU’S

Founder: Byju Raveendran

BYJU’S is a school learning app which offers highly adaptive, engaging and effective learning programs for students from classes K-12 and competitive exams like JEE, NEET and IAS. BYJU’S launched its flagship product, BYJU’S - The Learning App, for classes 4-12 in 2015. Today, the app has over 64 million registered students and 4.2 million annual paid subscriptions. With an average time of 71 minutes being spent by a student on the app every day from 1,700+ cities, the app is creating a whole new way of learning through visual lessons, live classes by top BYJU’S teachers and encouraging students to become self-initiated learners.

College Dunia

Founder: Sahil Chalana

Collegedunia.com is an extensive search engine for students, parents, and education industry players who are seeking information on higher education sector in India and abroad. One can rely on Collegedunia.com for getting most brief and relevant data on colleges and universities. The website has a repository of more than 20,000 colleges and 6,000 courses categorised in different streams like Management, Engineering, Medical, Arts and much more. 

Gradeup

Founder: Shobhit Bhatnagar

Gradeup, an exam preparation platform backed by $10 million from Times Internet, helps more than 20 million exam aspirants prepare effectively for competitive examinations like JEE, NEET, GATE, IBPS, SSC, TET, UPSC amongst others. It is India’s only ed-tech platform which has built engaging exam-specific communities of students preparing for competitive exams, enabling students to interact with fellow peers & mentors, ask questions, share updates & much more. Its flagship offering is Gradeup Classroom, a comprehensive exam preparation tool providing Live online courses from some of India’s best faculty.

Toppr 

Founder: Zishaan Hayath, Hemanth Goteti

Toppr is an after-school learning app on a mission to make learning personalised. It caters to the individual learning styles of candidates and provides the widest K12 syllabus coverage with thousands of course combinations. It currently has over 11 million students on its platform and helps them prepare for various school, board, and competitive exams. It uses natural language processing to solve student doubts instantly. It also uses artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data to study student behaviour and create adaptive learning paths with infinite combinations. This ensures that every student has a unique and personalised learning experience.

Unacademy

Founder: Gaurav Munjal, Roman Saini, and Hemesh Singh

Unacademy is an Indian online education technology company based in Bangalore. It was originally created as a YouTube channel in 2010 by Gaurav Munjal. As a company, it was founded by Gaurav Munjal, Roman Saini, and Hemesh Singh in 2015, and is headquartered in Bangalore. The company has a network of over 18,000 educators and offers preparation material for professional and educational entrance exams. The lessons are in the form of live classes, both free and via subscription. In a span of 6 months, over 300,000 students have benefited from over 2,400 online lessons and specialised courses on cracking various competitive examinations, on our platform. Unacademy has onboarded some of the top educators in the country, including Kiran Bedi, India’s first woman IPS officer and now the Governor of Pondicherry.

Vedantu

Founder: Vamsi Krishna, Saurabh Saxena, Pulkit Jain, Anand Prakash

Vedantu is a live interactive online learning platform for students. It offers individual and group classes delivered by experienced Master Teachers in a live real-time, virtual learning through their patented platform. The indigenous platform built for revolutionising online learning captures 70+ parameters, helps drive high engagement and interaction in virtual class and give students their personalised learning reports to help them understand the knowledge gaps. Students can also access free content, take tests, and play LIVE quiz every day. More than 1 million students study live every month on the platform and more than 25 million users every month from 1,000+ cities and 40+ countries access free content, tests, doubts, videos on Vedantu’s platform and its channels on YouTube.

Upgrad 

Founder: Ronnie Screwvala, Mayank Kumar, Phalgun Kompalli, Ravijot Chugh

Founded in early 2015, upGrad has on-boarded over 34.5K paid learners and impacted around 8 lakh individuals globally within a short span of 5 years. It provides online programs in the areas of Data Science, Technology, Management and Law to college students, working professionals and enterprises. These programs are designed and delivered in collaboration with top-notch universities like IIT Madras, IIIT Bangalore, MICA, NMIMS Global Access, Jindal Global Law School, Duke CE, Deakin University, Liverpool John Moores University and others. With an 80% program completion rate, robust tech platform, outcome-based learning approach, industry-relevant curriculum, finest university credentials, strong mentorship, and steadfast placement support, upGrad has established its position as the leader in the Indian education system.

Whitehat Jr

Founder: Karan Bajaj

An EdTech start-up founded by ex-Discovery Networks CEO Karan Bajaj, Whitehat Jr offers a range of artificial intelligence course options designed for children 6-14, thereby preparing them for the new digital world. It focuses on using a systematic approach to help school-going children learn the fundamentals of AI programming, Python machine learning, and more. All classes are taught Live 1:1 online in the comfort of the child’s home by top 99.9th percentile of certified teachers.

Great Learning

Founder: Mohan Lakhamraju

Great Learning offers comprehensive, industry-relevant programs in Software Engineering, Business Management, Business Analytics, Data Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Cyber Security, Digital Marketing, Design Thinking, and more. Great Learning’s programs are developed in collaboration with the world’s foremost academic institutions like Stanford University, The University of Texas at Austin, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT Madras), People’s Education Society University, Bengaluru (PES University, Bengaluru) and Great Lakes Institute of Management and are constantly reimagined and revamped to address the dynamic needs of the industry. Great Learning is the only ed-tech company to provide these programs in a blended mode, classroom mode and in purely online mode, relying on its vast network of expert mentors and highly qualified faculty to deliver an unmatched learning experience for learners in India and the world over. Having delivered over 30 million hours of transformational learning that has impacted 3,00,000+ learners from over 140 countries, Great Learning is on a mission to enable transformative learning and career success in the digital economy for professionals and students across the globe.

Harappa Education

Founder: Shreyasi Singh

Harappa Education is an online learning institution that aims to become a necessary and high-quality learning destination for all professionals, teams and organisations. Its unique curriculum of 5 Habits and 25 Skills, delivered through an engaging online-first approach, addresses a core gap in education – the cognitive (how to think, reason and problem-solve), social (how to communicate, influence and build relationships) and behavioral (how to grow, act and lead) skills that employers crave at the workplace. Its pedagogical approach is rooted in academic research, expert insights and behavioral science.

We at Adgully support this movement wholeheartedly, and are compiling an exhaustive repository of all local/ homegrown businesses, brands and Apps. This compilation will serve as a one-stop ready industry reckoner for businesses – domestic and global – looking for information on Indian brands and Apps.

We are reaching out to you to share the details of home-grown/ local brands or Apps by your company. Kindly mail us at:

nehal@adgully.com

Pritee@adgully.com