Online tutoring platform Vedantu has announced its buyback programme for employee stock options worth $3 million, the company said on Friday.
Vedantu’s top leadership and active employees, who have completed the vesting period for their stock options will be eligible for the programme. Founders of Vedantu will not be participating in the buyback, the company said.
"We have seen enormous growth over the last few years, and we take immense pride in the impact we are creating in the lives of our students. As Vedantu grows, we want our employees to grow with us as well as they are equal contributors towards this growth. By growing the technology, engineering and product teams across all functions, ESOPs provide employees with high ownership, while providing more opportunities for financial growth,” said Vamsi Krishna, chief executive officer and co-founder, Vedantu.
“We want to enable long-term wealth creation for our employees and recognise their contribution and commitment,” added Krishna.
Vedantu’s buyback programme for employees comes on the heels of the company raising $100 million, earlier in September this year, led by Singapore-based ABC World Asia. The round also saw participation from existing investors Coatue, Tiger Global and GGV Capital, valuing the firm at $1 billion.
Eleven-year-old Vedantu focuses on providing live tutoring courses to students from 3 years to 18 years of age. It also offers test preparation for competitive exams such as IIT-JEE, National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), and school boards such as Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE), and state exams such as Maharashtra boards.
For Vedantu, almost 55% to 60% of the company's revenues come from live tutoring offerings, with test preparation contributing to another 30%-35% of overall revenues, founder Krishna told Mint in an earlier interaction.
Post its latest fundraise, the company was planning to set foot in international markets over the next 12-15 months, exploring West Asia and Southeast Asian geographies as potential targets for expansion.
The company now claims to have over 1 million students attending live classes on its platform every month. Further, more than 35 million users every month from over 10,000 cities worldwide access free content, tests, doubts, videos on Vedantu's platform and its YouTube channel, the company said.
Vedantu catered to over 200,000 paying students last year. It was also clocking $65 million in annual revenue run-rate as of September this year, and had plans to double this number by next year.
The kindergarten to grade 12 (K-12) learning segment is expected to almost grow by 6.3 times and create a $1.7 billion market by 2022, according to a recent report by management consultancy Redseer and impact fund Omidyar Network India.