Top 10 Edtech Companies in India
SUMMARY
India’s edtech space has undergone a series of dramatic changes over a short period – an initial wave of video-lecture-based platforms, fueled by the pandemic, into one of the country’s top fundraising sectors, a subsequent crash as physical classrooms reopened, and a current focus on more niche services better designed to achieve learning outcomes beyond the broad online education umbrella.
This article focused on edtechs, true technology platforms offering software-based services, as opposed to coaching institutes that have chosen to digitize their pedagogy; the two should be considered different.
Below is a list of the top 10 edtech companies, ranked according to their year of inception, owner, function, and services provided.
Quick Comparison
| Rank | Company | Founded | Owner / Founders | Headquarters | Core Focus |
| 1 | PhysicsWallah (PW) | 2020 (content since 2016) | Alakh Pandey & Prateek Maheshwari | Noida | Affordable Test Prep |
| 2 | Unacademy | 2015 | Gaurav Munjal, Roman Saini, Hemesh Singh | Bengaluru | Competitive Exam Prep, Live Classes |
| 3 | upGrad | 2015 | Ronnie Screwvala, Mayank Kumar, Phalgun Kompalli | Mumbai | Higher Education, Upskilling |
| 4 | Vedantu | 2014 | Vamsi Krishna, Pulkit Jain, Saurabh Saxena, Anand Prakash | Bengaluru | K-12 Live Online Tutoring |
| 5 | Testbook | 2014 | Ashutosh Kumar and a team of IIT alumni co-founders | Gurugram | Government Exam Preparation |
| 6 | Scaler (InterviewBit) | 2015 (relaunched as Scaler in 2019) | Anshuman Singh & Abhimanyu Saxena | Bengaluru | Tech Upskilling, Software Careers |
| 7 | Coding Ninjas | 2016 | Ankush Singla, Kannu Mittal, Dhawal Parate; acquired by PhysicsWallah in 2022 | Gurugram | Coding & Programming Education |
| 8 | Classplus | 2018 | Mukul Rustagi & Bhaswat Agarwal | Noida | SaaS for Tutors & Coaching Institutes |
| 9 | Teachmint | 2020 | Mihir Gupta, Payoj Jain, Divyansh Bordia, Anshuman Kumar | Bengaluru | School & Institute Management SaaS |
| 10 | CollegeDekho | 2015 | Ruchir Arora & Saurabh Jain | Gurugram | College Discovery & Admissions |
1. PhysicsWallah (PW) – Affordable test-prep at massive scale
| Details | Information |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2020 (formally), 2016 (content) |
| Owner | Alakh Pandey & Prateek Maheshwari |
| HQ | Noida, UP |
PhysicsWallah was initially started as a YouTube channel by Alakh Pandey, which provided free physics lectures – later scaled up and incorporated as a company with co-founder Prateek Maheshwari in 2020.
In contrast to the industry standard of expensive subscription pricing, PhysicsWallah offered an affordable pricing model and expanded its verticals to include offline coaching centers as well – acquired Coding Ninjas in 2022.
What PhysicsWallah does: Provides low-cost online and offline coaching for school level and competitive exams like JEE and NEET.
Services: Video lectures, test series, doubt solving, offline coaching centers, and more.
2. Unacademy – Live classes for competitive exam aspirants
| Details | Information |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2015 |
| Owner | Gaurav Munjal, Roman Saini, Hemesh Singh |
| HQ | Bengaluru, Karnataka |
Unacademy was launched as a YouTube channel, based on the premise that expertise in a certain area can generate an online teacher with a potential audience of students. It was formally launched as an organization in 2015.
Since then, it has built up as one of the leading names in India for coaching for competitive examinations, ranging from the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) examination to school board exams.
What Unacademy does: Offering live classes and courses for exam and skill-based learning.
Services: Live and recorded lectures, classes, and courses, plus test series and more.
3. upGrad – Online degrees and professional upskilling
| Details | Information |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2015 |
| Owner | Ronnie Screwvala, Mayank Kumar, Phalgun Kompalli |
| HQ | Mumbai, Maharashtra |
upGrad was founded in 2015 by media mogul Ronnie Screwvala as a platform that offered online degrees and certificates, and was backed by universities and industry executives.
It has grown phenomenally to become one of the largest online higher-education companies in India, and acquired many organizations in this sector.
What upGrad does: Provides online degrees and certifications in collaboration with universities.
Services: Online degrees, executive education, data science, and more.
4. Vedantu – Pioneering live online tutoring for K-12
| Details | Information |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2014 |
| Owner | Vamsi Krishna, Pulkit Jain, Saurabh Saxena, Anand Prakash |
| HQ | Bengaluru, Karnataka |
Vedantu was launched by a group of teachers and technologists in 2014 with the vision of bringing interactive and real-time learning sessions for students who could not afford or find good teachers nearby.
Vedantu started offering real-time one-to-one and small group classes for school-level subjects and later expanded to competitive exam preparations.
What Vedantu does: Live online classes and tutoring for school and competitive exams.
Services: Live classes, one-to-one tutoring, video library, and test series.
5. Testbook – A focused player for government exam aspirants
| Details | Information |
|---|---|
| Founded | January 2014 |
| Owner | Ashutosh Kumar, Narendra Agrawal, Praveen Agrawal, Manoj Munna, Yadvendar Champawat, Abhishek Sagar (founding members) |
| HQ | Gurugram, Haryana |
Testbook was started in 2014 by a group of IIT graduates who decided to address the needs of a particular niche market: test preparation for the many government job examinations that are mandatory to pass to work in India.
Thus, the portal was a great success, as it provided the much-needed services to the people who could not find any particular websites for their needs. Now, the company has acquired millions of registered users.
What Testbook does: Live online classes, study material, and test series for government job aspirants.
Services: Mock tests, live coaching, and study material for government exams.
6. Scaler – Upskilling for software engineers
| Details | Information |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2015 (InterviewBit), 2019 (Scaler) |
| Owner | Anshuman Singh & Abhimanyu Saxena |
| HQ | Bengaluru, Karnataka |
Scaler was originally launched in 2015 as InterviewBit, a free software developer technical interview preparation platform co-founded by IIIT-Hyderabad alumni Anshuman Singh and Abhimanyu Saxena.
After analyzing the user base and understanding the impact of their courses on student’s professional growth, the co-founders rebranded InterviewBit as Scaler, an outcome-driven upskilling program for working software engineers in 2019.
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What Scaler does: Providing systematic knowledge to software engineers for their career growth.
Services: Computer science courses, data science, and DevOps, with career placement assistance.
7. Coding Ninjas – Structured coding education
| Details | Information |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2016 |
| Owner | Ankush Singla, Kannu Mittal, Dhawal Parate (acquired by PhysicsWallah) |
| HQ | Gurugram, Haryana |
Coding Ninjas is an online coding school, which was founded in 2016 by Ankush Singla, a former Facebook and Amazon engineer, and Kannu Mittal and Dhawal Parate.
Its purpose is to bridge the gap between the education system and the real-life requirements of the workplace by providing students with the knowledge and skills demanded by the industry. The firm was acquired by PhysicsWallah in 2022.
What Coding Ninjas does: Provides structured education in computer science.
Services: Programming courses, data science, machine learning, and more with career placement assistance.
8. Classplus – A SaaS backbone for India’s independent tutors
| Details | Information |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2018 |
| Owner | Mukul Rustagi, Bhaswat Agarwal |
| HQ | Noida, UP |
Classplus was started by Mukul Rustagi and Bhaswat Agarwal – classmates who used to study together for engineering entrance exams, later got inspired to create an edtech startup that would target a different audience than the ones existing companies were targeting at the time: the teachers and institutes offering one-on-one tutoring to their students, but did not have technology to offer online classes easily, especially from tier 2 and tier 3 cities.
What Classplus does: A mobile-based SaaS platform for tutors and institutes to digitize and
scale their offline teaching services.
Services: Video conferencing, attendance, fees management, study material management, and more for tutors and institutes.
9. Teachmint – Digital infrastructure for schools and institutes
| Details | Information |
|---|---|
| Founded | May 2020 |
| Owner | Mihir Gupta, Payoj Jain, Divyansh Bordia, Anshuman Kumar |
| HQ | Bengaluru, Karnataka |
Teachmint was started in May 2020, at the dawn of the pandemic, by a co-founding team that had worked at OYO, McKinsey & Company, and other startups.
Instead of creating yet another content platform for the Indian education system, they decided to build infrastructure, or the foundational layer, upon which other players can operate to effectively conduct classes, take attendance, and manage academics.
What Teachmint does: A digital infrastructure for schools, colleges, and institutes to manage their administration and conduct online classes.
Services: Tools for virtual classrooms, attendance, fee management, tests, assignments, and more.
10. CollegeDekho – Higher education discovery and admissions
| Details | Information |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2015 |
| Owner | Ruchir Arora, Saurabh Jain |
| HQ | Gurugram, Haryana |
CollegeDekho was founded in 2015 by Ruchir Arora and Saurabh Jain to help students make the right choice for higher education and apply to colleges – unlike other college listing websites, it provides free counseling to help students discover and apply to colleges.
What CollegeDekho does: Helps students make the right choices for higher education and admissions.
Services: College discovery, application assistance, free career counseling, and more.
FAQs
1. What is the oldest edtech company on this list?
Testbook and Vedantu were founded in 2014, making them the oldest ones on this list.
2. What is the difference between an edtech company and a traditional coaching institute that has digitized its offerings?
Edtech companies on this list have been primarily focused on creating a technological platform or application as their core offering, whereas traditional coaching institutes have simply added technology to their existing offline operations.
3. Which companies on this list are focused on providing resources for competitive or government exams?
PhysicsWallah, Unacademy, Vedantu, and Testbook are primarily focused on providing exam-specific resources such as live lectures, test series, and more.
4. Which companies on this list are building B2B tools for teachers and institutes?
Classplus and Teachmint are primarily targeting the B2B segment, building SaaS tools for individual tutors, coaching institutes, and schools.
5. Which company on this list has been acquired by another edtech company?
PhysicsWallah acquired Coding Ninjas in 2022, making it a part of its larger learning ecosystem.
6. Which company helps students choose which colleges or courses to apply to?
CollegeDekho primarily focuses on helping students discover colleges and apply to them.
7. Which companies focus on professional upskilling / higher education/career building?
upGrad and Scaler are focused on providing career-building opportunities to working professionals instead of students.
8. How did India’s edtech sector evolve after the pandemic?
Following the explosive growth and investment during the pandemic, India’s edtech sector has seen a correction as the classroom reopened across the country, leading to a greater emphasis on better learning outcomes, more realistic pricing, and more specific use cases than the broad “anything-and-everything” edtech companies.
9. Which companies on this list started as a free or low-cost content platform and turned into full-fledged businesses?
PhysicsWallah and Unacademy started as a YouTube channel before turning into companies offering live lectures and other resources for a fee.
10. Why have many Indian edtech companies focused on specific exams instead of attempting to offer broad-spectrum learning like traditional coaching institutes?
India has a diverse set of learners, ranging from those targeting school-level exams to government jobs to higher education – instead of trying to offer everything to everyone (and not doing any one thing extraordinarily well), it makes much more sense to specialize in one segment, such as school-level tutoring, competitive exams, government exam preparation, and more.
Conclusion
India’s top edtech companies reflect a sector that has matured well beyond its pandemic-era hype cycle, settling into more clearly defined niches — from PhysicsWallah and Testbook’s focus on affordable exam preparation, to Scaler’s structured tech upskilling, to Classplus and Teachmint’s B2B infrastructure for educators, and CollegeDekho’s role in simplifying college admissions.
As India’s education needs continue to diversify across exam types, career paths, and institution sizes, these ten companies — each built around a distinct, well-understood problem — are well positioned to remain central to how the country learns and teaches, regardless of which specific year someone happens to be reading this list.
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