Software as a Service (SaaS) major Zoho Corp has thrown its hat into the action-packed edu-tech space with the launch of Zoho Classes. Designed with the intention to help school and college teachers connect with their students online and conduct regular classroom activities like attendance and teaching of lessons, Zoho Classes is Zoho’s first-ever product launched targeting a specific vertical, in this case, the academia.

Given the emphasis on remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, the launch of Zoho Classes couldn’t come at a more opportune time for the Chennai-based SAAS firm. “Keeping in mind the situation, we have decided to make Zoho Classes completely free for all government schools in India,” said Praval Singh, Head of Marketing, Zoho Corp. While the app comes free of charge for the first 100 students of a private school, other students will have to pay a subscription-fee of Rs 250 per student, per year.

“We are currently on trial with thousands of students, right now. Eventually, we expect to serve millions of students,” said Sridhar Vembu, Founder and CEO, Zoho Corp, “We are working hard to get more schools on board. At present, Zoho Classes has just wrapped up a pilot run with Chennai-based Vidya Mandir, where it was used by 70 teachers and 850 students. Nearly a dozen other schools have already partnered with Zoho to use the app.

More fresh faces in edu-tech

Zoho’s decision to get on board the academic market comes at a time when several tech firms are throwing their hat in edu-tech space. In fact, angel and seed investor, Venture Catalysts predicts a growth in the number of edu-tech start-ups in India this year, on account of COVID-19 forcing students to learn from home, despite the emergence of new companies in the space seeing a downward trajectory in the last five years.

“While there were 1,213 edu-tech start-ups founded in 2015, that number shrunk to 503 in 2017 and then just 289 in 2019,” said Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, Co-Founder and President, Venture Catalysts, “However, in 2020 that number might go between 5,00 to 1,000 companies venturing into the edu-tech space.”

More funding in store for edu-tech start-ups

The funding in edu-tech has also followed a similar story. Apoorv points out that while funding in edu-tech grew from $208 million in 2017 to $655 million in 2018, the sector raked in only $133 million in 2019. “Till 2019, the major funding came across only late-stage deals like Byju and Vedantu,” he said, “But in 2020, the overall edu-tech funding will rise again, and could even double year-on-year.”

Those projections are finding relevance on the ground too. Edu-tech start-up Pariksha says it’s in talks with nearly three venture capitalists at the moment.

“It is difficult to say how much firms like ours will end up securing in funding, but companies at the Pre-Series-A, Series-A and Series-B stages will see huge interest from investors, with some companies also commanding a COVID-19 premium in valuation,” said Karanvir Singh, Founder and Managing Director, Pariksha.

First Published:Apr 29, 2020 5:41 PM IST