Established Banks And Marquee Investors Back LEAD With INR 160 Crore The new round of fundraising will help finance the company's organic and inorganic growth ambitions
By Teena Jose
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India's edtech company LEAD, has announced that established banks and marquee investors have backed its business model with an investment of INR 160 crore. LEAD's latest round of funding was via a mix of long term capital from Alteria Capital and Stride Ventures, India's marquee venture debt investors; and working capital financing from prestigious banks such as Standard Chartered Bank, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank. The new round of fundraising will help finance the company's organic and inorganic growth ambitions.
"Traditionally, startups have had limited avenues for raising capital beyond equity. However, with our strong unit economics and clear path to profitability, we have been able to attract non-dilutive, traditional capital from India's biggest banks and largest venture debt funds, which is value accretive to our shareholders. LEAD is poised for 2 times growth and this latest round of funding will help us fast-track our mission of providing high quality, integrated school edtech solutions to over 60,000 schools across India by 2026," said Sumeet Mehta, co-founder and chief executive officer of LEAD.
Last week, LEAD entered into an agreement with Pearson, the world's leading learning company, to acquire its local K-12 learning business in India. With this acquisition, LEAD will immediately expand its reach to over 9000 schools and will further enhance its product portfolio to cater to the entire spectrum of over 5 lakh private schools in India, claimed by the company in a statement.
"In line with our core thesis of backing high-growth companies that drive deep innovation and impact, we are excited to have been a part of the debt round in LEAD School. LEAD's journey of success as India's largest School Edtech company underscores the massive opportunity for technology-enabled disruption in school education in India. We are confident that our investment will further help LEAD achieve its growth objectives," said Ankit Agarwal, partner, Alteria Capital.
LEAD was founded in 2012 by Sumeet Mehta and Smita Deorah, with the mission to transform school education in India.
