Alteria Capital Funds Rs. 15.5 Cr of Venture Debt to Ed-tech Company Toppr

Toppr Technologies Pvt Ltd has raised Rs.15.5 Cr of venture debt from Alteria Capital, the new fund launched recently by Ajay Hattangdi and Vinod Murali. The deal represents the third investment from Alteria Capital’s maiden Rs.1,000 Cr fund, which had its first close in February 2018.

Founded in 2013 by Zishaan Hayath and Hemanth Goteti and backed by SAIF Partners, Eight Roads and Helion Venture Partners, Toppr is one of the leaders in the edtech space in India. Toppr helps students prepare for competitive entrance exams like IIT JEE Mains and Advanced, BITSAT, NEET etc. The company caters to students between 5th and 12th Grades and its learning pieces include questions, solutions, concepts, practice tests and videos for the students signed up on the app.

So far, Toppr has raised a total of $18.92M in equity funding. In October 2017, the company had raised Rs 45 Cr in its second round of Series B funding, led by its existing investors SAIF Partners, Helion Ventures and FIL Capital Management. Toppr had raised a cumulative $12 million in May 2014 and May 2015 in its Seed and Series B funding rounds. It also acquired edtech startup Manch  in 2016 and Jodhpur-based Easyprep in 2015. The company is pursuing aggressive expansion plans to reach out to students across the country.

With centres in over 17 cities, the platform’s user base has grown to over 2.5 million students last year, with increasing penetration in tier-II and III cities.

Recently Toppr has announced that it has projected 20X growth in junior grade and 15X in senior grade subscriptions by 2021 and aims to generate over $500 mn in revenue in the next four years.

Other startups operating in the online test preparation space include Examify, Embibe, Examify, TestBook among others.

Alteria Capital is India’s largest Venture Debt fund with an Rs.800 Cr corpus and a greenshoe option of Rs.200 Cr. Alteria announced a First Close in February 2018 with Rs.356 Cr of commitments which includes anchor investments from IndusInd Bank and a large Indian Family Office Foundation. Alteria has also received a sanction of Rs 100 Cr from SIDBI subsequent to the first close. Alteria will provide venture debt to high growth, innovative Indian startups with a cheque size range of Rs. 2 Cr – Rs. 100 Cr. Alteria’s current portfolio includes Fingerlix (Maverix Platforms Pvt Ltd) and Universal Sportsbiz Pvt Ltd.