15 Largest EdTech Companies in the World

In this article we discuss the top 15 largest EdTech companies in the world.

EdTech is the combined use of technology and educational theories to facilitate student learning. The EdTech industry is a diverse and rapidly growing market which includes early-stage startups, middle-market companies to publicly traded companies. It is getting significant attention from industry veterans as well as generalist investors. According to EdSurge, in 2019, $1.7 billion was invested by venture capital funds into the industry across 105 deals. Technology has revolutionized education from online courses to virtual classrooms. The rapidly emerging sector is introducing new ways of educating anyone who wants to learn. Around the world, countries are committing to enhance the learning abilities of students by incorporating technological initiatives into schools, colleges, and universities. This has enabled educational institutes to incorporate technologies like artificial intelligence, augmented/virtual reality, and robotics to change the conventional methods of teaching. The EdTech industry offers various benefits like increased collaboration amongst students, 24/7 access to learning, personalized educational experiences, automated grading systems, classroom management tools and creating paperless classrooms. The global education technology market size is expected to surpass $285.2 billion by 2027 growing at a rate of 18.1% according to Grand View Research.

The Explosive Growth Potential of the EdTech Market

By 2018, American EdTech companies alone raised $1.45 billion in investment. Furthermore, investments in the Chinese EdTech industry make up 44.1% of the $16.34 billion invested globally during 2018. The growth in the Chinese EdTech market has been exponential where the number of online education users crossed 423 million in March 2020.

As the EdTech market continued to innovate and create new educational platforms, more startups joined the market by offering personalized products which resonate with the end-users personally. The already growing demand for online education was further propelled by the COVID-19 pandemic as schools and colleges were closed around the world.

By January 2020, there were a handful of EdTech companies which were valued at over a billion dollars. The EdTech industry in U.S. raised over $2.2 billion in funding across 130 deals, according to the EdSurge funding database. It is also estimated that by 2025, investment in the EdTech sector will rise to $8 trillion globally.

Photo by Marten Bjork on Unsplash

Here is a list of the 15 largest Edtech Companies in the world.

15. Boxlight Corporation (NASDAQ: BOXL)

Revenue: $54 million in 2020 via Yahoo Finance

Valuation: $180.78 million

Boxlight Corporation is a Georgia-based EdTech company that develops and sells interactive classroom solutions for the global education market. It designs, manufactures, and distributes interactive technologies such as projectors, flat panels, peripherals, and other accessories that aid the learning process of students. It also produces science, engineering, and math products such as coding systems, robotics, 3D printers, and portable science labs. The company’s products can be integrated into classroom software suites that provide tools for classroom learning, assessments, and collaboration. It also offers professional development and training resources to educators including customized programs, online certifications and in-person courses. Boxlight’s products are sold in over 60 countries and its software are available in 33 languages.

14. Course Hero

Revenue: $100 million via techcrunch

Valuation: $1.1 billion

Course Hero is an EdTech website company which is based in Redwood City, California. It has created an online learning platform for students and provides course-specific study resources which have been contributed by a community of students and instructors. This unique learning platform is crowdsourced and contains study guides, practice problems, class notes, essays, videos, lap repots and original materials that are uploaded by teachers. Users can buy a subscription to get access or unlock its contents by uploading original documents on the website. Course Hero has over one million subscribers who pay from $10 to $40 per month. According to TechCrunch, in 2020, Course Hero had an annual run revenue upward of $100 million. Course Hero has raised a total of $97.4 million in funding in over 8 rounds.

13. ApplyBoard

Revenue: $300 million in 2020 via techcrunch

Valuation: $1.4 billion

ApplyBoard is a software company based in Waterloo, Ontario. It was founded in 2015 with the aim of providing international students a convenient platform to make university applications easier. ApplyBoard provides a simple platform that makes the study abroad search much easier. It facilitates the search, application, and university acceptance process by connecting international students, academic institutions and recruitment partners on one platform. ApplyBoard has now become the world’s largest digital hub for international student recruitment. It has already helped over 120,000 students to apply for 1200+ universities located worldwide. The company has more than 500 employees working in 20 countries ranging from Mexico to Nepal. It was named Canada’s fastest growing company in 2019 by Deloitte. The company has raised $75 million to raise its valuation to the $1.5 billion mark which has made it one of the top EdTech unicorns in the world. ApplyBoard has raised a total of $178.3 million in funding over 9 rounds.

12. Stride, Inc. (NYSE: LRN)

Revenue: $1.04 billion in 2020 via Yahoo Finance

Valuation: $1.52 billion

Stride, Inc. was previously known as K12 Inc. and is a for-profit EdTech company that is based in Virginia, United States. It provides an education management system which is an alternative to the traditional “brick and mortar” education available to public school students from kindergarten to high school. In 2020, almost 165,000 K-12 students were enrolled in the company’s online programs under the K12 moniker. There has been a surge in these enrollments during the COVID-19 pandemic, as people are switching to remote learning options. Stride, Inc. is expected to generate total revenue of $1.5 billion and revenue from career learning programs totaling $250 in fiscal 2021, according to EdWeek Market Brief.

11. Unacademy

Revenue: $300 million via yourstory

Valuation: $2.0 billion

Headquartered in Bangalore, India, Unacademy is an online EdTech company which was originally created as a YouTube Channel by Gaurav Munjal. The company was founded in 2015 and has now established a network of over 18,000 instructors who provide classes and preparation material for many professional and educational entrance exams in India. The lessons are in the form of Live classes which may be free or paid. Unacademy is a privately held company that has raised funding through a series of offerings. It has raised investment from companies like Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ: FB), General Atlantic, Flipkart, Nexus Ventures and Blume Ventures. Unacademy has raised a total of $398.5 million in funding over 11 rounds. As of December 2020, the company was valued at $2.0 billion dollars.

10. Duolingo

Revenue: $200 million in 2020 via Wall Street Journal

Valuation: $2.4 billion

Duolingo is a private EdTech company that is based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is a language-learning website and has its own phone app and a digital language proficiency exam. It runs on a freemium model which means that the website and the app can be accessed by users without any charges. However, a paid premium service is also available to users. As of March 2021, Duolingo provides 106 language courses in 38 languages. Its app has over 300 million registered users from across the globe. Duolingo has become one of the most popular learning platforms as its content is created mostly by language learning scientists, AI experts and machine learning engineers. Different kinds of content such as podcasts, quizzes and interactive stories are available on its app. Duolingo has over 42 million monthly active users as of 2020. In March 2020, it was names as the second most popular educational website which has over 55.6 million visitors.

9. Coursera, Inc. (NYSE: COUR)

Revenue: $293.5 million in 2020 via Yahoo Finance

Valuation: $2.5 billion

Coursera is an online learning platform that is based in Mountain View, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley. It offers classes taught by teachers from the top universities in the world such as Johns Hopkins and Stanford. The company has partnered with universities and organizations such as Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE: IBM), and Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) to provide courses which can earn students’ digital certificates that they can add to their resumes. Coursera also offers MasterTrack certificates which can count towards the students’ master degrees as well. Users can also enroll in projects to gain experience in a subject such as creating a web app or animations. Coursera currently offers more than 4300 courses, 450 specializations, 440 projects, 30 certificates and 20 degrees according to its website. According to Pitchbook, the company is valued at $2.5 billion, and the total capital invested to date is $464 million. Due to the pandemic, the number of users of the platform increased by 66% in 2020. The total number of users in 2020 were 76 million.

8. 2U, Inc. (NASDAQ: TWOU)

Revenue: $774 million in 2020 via Yahoo Finance

Valuation: $2.81 billion

Headquartered in Maryland, 2U, Inc. is another American EdTech company that has made the list. The company contracts with non-profit colleges and universities to offer online degree programs. They provide their clients with a cloud-based software-as-a-service platform, infrastructure support, coursework design, and capital. 2U, Inc. has a diverse collection of more than 3500 individuals working across ten offices around the world with the sole aim of bringing quality higher education to those who want it to address the critical needs of the society. The company has built, delivered, and supported more than 500 digital and in-person educational offerings which include undergraduate and graduate degrees, trilogy-powered bootcamps, professional certificates, and short courses. According to 2U, Inc. more than 200,000 students have used its platform till date.

7. Udemy

Revenue: $400 million in 2020 via techcrunch

Valuation: $3.25 billion

Udemy is a massive open online course provider or marketplace with over 40 million students, 70,000 instructors and 155,000 courses available in 65 languages as of February 2021. It is an open marketplace which means that anyone can create a course on its platform. This approach has led to the exponential growth of the platform since it was first founded in 2010. There have been over 480 million course enrollments and students and instructors belong to 180+ countries worldwide. Moreover, Udemy has focused on attracting corporate trainers to create specific coursework for their companies’ employees as well. Headquartered in San Francisco, the company has offices located in Ireland, Turkey, Brazil and India. In February 2020, Udemy raised $50 million from Benesse Holdings and $50 million more were raised in 2020 from Tencent Holdings which led to a valuation of $3.25 billion, according to Udemy’s press release.

6. VIPKID

Revenue: $760 million via equalocean

Valuation: $4.5 billion

VIPKid is an online teaching and education company which connects teachers and children for online English learning classes. It is one of China’s leading educational companies which has attracted investors like Tencent and Coatue Management. Currently, the platform connects over 500,000 paying students with over 60,000 teachers located in Canada and the US. Teachers on the platform teach over 180,000 classes daily. VIPKid has combined AI and education and is now partnering with Microsoft to use new technologies that are able to analyze student behavior so that they can be taught accordingly. It was also listed as one of the world’s most innovative companies by Fast company.