Before Vamsi Krishna, along with long-time friends Anand Prakash and Pulkit Jain, started edtech company Vedantu in 2014, they had Lakshya, an educational institute for competitive exams, which he and his fellow IITians began in 2006. Although the institute did well, scaling up was a challenge. With the idea of using technology to scale faster and better, they launched Vedantu, a Bengaluru-based online teaching platform and India’s first to offer online classes, now a part of our daily routine. Challenges were many, remembers Krishna. This was the time when 4G hadn’t yet arrived; their efforts were also directed towards product innovation leading to lowering of prices for students. While growth has been steady since 2017, the pandemic acted as a catalyst, their valuation growing 40 times just in the last two years, as live classes became mainstream. Krishna admits that online education in India has a long way to go, but the fact that this growth has continued even as schools have opened, is a positive sign.

Vedantu is now the 28th Indian startup to enter the unicorn club—privately held startup companies valued at over USD 1 billion—this year, raising USD 100 million in a funding round led by Temasek-backed impact investing fund ABC World Asia. In 2020, 11 startups entered the club, while in 2021, six were crowned in a week and 18 in just the first half. The unprecedented expansion of the market and growth in revenue and investment has led experts to believe that India will have 150 unicorns by 2025. “There is no more doubt that India will be one of the top three ecosystems for startups in the world,” says Pranav Pai, managing partner at 3one4 Capital. “USA is at No 1 with 400 unicorns and USD 100 billion investment every year, China at No  2  with 150 unicorns and USD 40-50 billion investment, and India at No 3 with USD 20-25 billion every year.”