The problem
Indian school classrooms are overcrowded and tuition centres are black boxes: parents pay for extra classes in maths, science and English with no way to judge teaching quality or track learning.
How it works
Lido Learning sold live, small-group online tutoring for K-12 students — teachers ran interactive classes on its platform and parents paid per-course subscriptions, a format that exploded while schools were shut in the pandemic.
Pain points
Rote tuition with no outcomes, one teacher for dozens of kids, and parents paying blind.
Business model
Parent-paid subscriptions per tutoring course, monetising live teacher time in small groups.
Challenges
Lido was the first major startup shutdown of 2022: after an investor backed out of a new round, founder Sahil Sheth told a 4 February 2022 town hall there were no funds left to run the business, laying off 150+ employees. Rescue merger talks with Vedantu and Reliance fell through as the post-COVID funding winter set in and reopening schools crushed demand while acquisition costs soared. The company filed for bankruptcy that September.
Funding
- Raised: ~$24M total from angels and funds including Unilazer Ventures, Ronnie Screwvala, Anupam Mittal, Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Mukesh Bansal (StartupTalky; Inc42).
- Valuation: MISSING.
Latest — September 2022
In September 2022 Lido Learning filed for bankruptcy after failed acquisition talks — closing the book on the Mumbai edtech startup that had laid off its workforce seven months earlier (Inc42).