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PE/VC Investments in Education spike up in 2016


Education related companies have already attracted PE/VC investments worth $184 million (across 11 deals) in the first 4.5 months of 2016 – 2.75 times compared to the $67 million across the whole of 2015 (17 investments). The sector is well on its way to surpass the highest ever figures ($235 M reported in 2012).


Recent Deals


The month of May has already witnessed three investments in test preparation and tutoring companies:

EduPristine - Certification Courses - Raised $8 million from Kaizen PE & US-based DeVry Education Group

Tabtor - App based Math Tutoring firm - Raised $3.7 M Series A led by Syven Capital

Prepathon - Test Prep App - Blume Ventures

Sector Focus




In the non-regulated sectors, Test Preparation (like Byju's Classes) and Vocational Training & Certification firms (like Simplilearn & Edupristine) have been the most favored sectors by investors.



The $70 million attracted by Byjus in March 2016 led by Belgium-based Sofina marks the largest investment for a startup education company and takes the total funding raised by the company to almost $100 million.

PE investors have even returned to the regulated sectors, CX Partners has invested as much as $60 M in Nspira, a group firm of the Hyderabad-based Narayana Group, while the Jain Group has attracted $35 million by selling a 74% stake the Real Estate assets of 12 of its K-12 schools (with an option to buy back the stake after 10 years) to Cerestra Edu Infra Fund.

Are you a PE/VC Investor, Investment Banker or Law Firm looking to track transactions in India. Click Here to take a trial to our awesome products like the Deal Digest Newsletter on which the above infographic was published first and the Private Equity & Venture Capital Deals Database from which the above trend was identified.



Aarin Capital, the family office of Manipal Group's Dr.RanjanPai and former Infosys CFO Mr. Mohandas Pai, has been both an active investor in the sector (4 investments in the last 15 months), but has also succeeded in getting strong follow-on funding for its early bets in the sector like Byjus and Tabtor. Among VC investors, firms like Kalaari Capital and seed funds like Blume Ventures have been specially focused on technology enabled companies in the sector.


Strategic Investors have also become quite active. Text book publishing company S.Chand, which had raised raised $26 M led by IFC in 2016,in 2016 has become an active strategic investor (backing 3 startups already). The EduPristine deal saw US-based DeVry Education Group, while Tabtor got participation by John Katzman, founder of The Princeton Review.

Most funded Education Companies




Venture Intelligence is India's longest serving provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. 

Are you a PE/VC Investor, Investment Banker or Law Firm looking to track transactions in India. Click Here to take a trial to our awesome products like the Deal Digest Newsletter on which the above infographic was published first and the Private Equity & Venture Capital Deals Database from which the above trend was identified.

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