Teachmint, an Indian edtech startup which began business just months after the Covid-19 pandemic broke out last year, has raised $16.5 million in its series A funding round.

The bumper funding signals just how bullish investors are feeling about online tutoring firms whose businesses saw robust growth due to coronavirus-induced stay-at-home policies.

The round, which is Teachmint’s third financing effort since its inception in May last year, was led by Learn Capital, a San Francisco Bay Area-based venture capital firm focusing on edtech, with participation from investors including CM Ventures, Lightspeed and Better Capital, according to a company statement issued last week.

Teachmint said that it will use the proceeds for talent recruitment, teaching technology development, strategic acquisitions and market expansion.

Teachmint, based in the city of Bengaluru, allows teachers to establish classes online through an app. The company has developed a product that enables teachers to conduct live classes, do problem-solving sessions, take attendance, hold webinars, collect fees, find new students, offer support via phone calls and conduct testing.

With more than 700,000 teachers from over 1,500 Indian cities and towns registered on its platform, Teachmint claims to be the world’s largest live teaching platform outside China, where regulators have tightened oversight of online education firms that may have violated the country’s anti-monopoly law.

On Monday, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation said in a notice that it has fined well-known online tutoring startups Yuanfudao and Zuoyebang 2.5 million yuan ($389,000) each for misleading consumers. Tencent-backed Yuanfudao was found to be using false advertising, while Baidu-backed Zuoyebang was found to be using misleading pricing, according to the regulator.

Contact reporter Ding Yi (yiding@caixin.com)

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