Indian online teaching platform Teachmint raises $16.5 million

An Indian startup that began its life after the global pandemic broke last year said on Tuesday it has concluded its third financing round as it enables hundreds of thousands of teachers in the world's second largest internet market run classes online and serve their students.

Bangalore-based Teachmint said today it has raised $16.5 million in its Series A financing round. The round was led by Learn Capital, the San Francisco Bay Area-headquartered venture capital firm that focuses on edtech firms and has backed some of the world's most promising online learning startups including Coursera, Udemy, Nerdy, Minerva, and Brainly.

Existing investors Better Capital, which first invested in Teachmint before the startup had even registered itself, and Lightspeed India Partners also participated in the new round, which brings the Indian startup's to-date raise to $20 million.

Teachmint helps teachers conduct classes online through an app on their Android smartphone or iPhone or through web. The startup has built an all-in-one product that allows teachers to kickstart a live class, do doubt-clearing sessions, take attendance, conduct webinars, collect fees, find new students, offer support via phone calls, and take tests among other tasks.

When the pandemic broke, teachers were struggling with several tools including Google Meet, Zoom and even Youtube/Facebook Live to teach online. They were using additional tools like Google Forms for tests and WhatsApp for communication. It was a difficult and disconnected experience for most teachers as none of these tools were productised for teaching. That's when we decided to build a mobile-first video-first solution specifically for teaching," said Mihir Gupta, co-founder and chief executive of Teachmint, in an interview with TechCrunch.

The product, available in 10 local languages, is highly localised for India-specific needs, said Gupta.

More than 700,000 teachers from over 1,500 cities and towns have signed up on the platform in less than 10 months since the launch of Teachmint's product, said Gupta.

From the Learn Capital team's first meeting with Teachmint's co-founders several months ago, it was clear that their collective team had meticulously architected an end-to-end, multi-modal, and best-in-class solution enabling teachers in India to instantly and seamlessly digitize their classrooms," said Vinit Sukhija, Partner at Learn Capital, in a statement.

Now with over 700,000 teachers, Teachmint has become India's leading online teaching platform," he said, adding that Learn Capital believes that Teachmint can eventually expand its offering outside of India.

Gupta said Teachmint is currently not monetizing its product, and doesn't intend to do so in the immediate future as it is currently priortizing reaching more teachers in India and also expand its offerings.

He said most teachers have learned about Teachmint from their friends and without any investment in marketing. Teachmint is open to exploring any strategic acquisition opportunities with smaller startups, he said.