Mumbai-based education technology company Lead School has raised $28 million in Series C funding, led by WestBridge Capital, and participation from existing investor Elevar Equity.

The company, which offers integrated curriculum and technology solutions to affordable private schools, is targeting the private school market in tier 2 cities and beyond and will utilise the capital to grow its sales channel and sign up new customers.

It will also seek to enhance its technology offerings to help schools better monitor and improve student learning outcomes.

“Affordable schools in small towns is where the problem is. In metros, the teachers are doing a great job. But in small towns, the parent aspiration is high, but teacher skill is low, and that’s the sweet spot where we work,” said cofounder and CEO Sumeet Mehta.

Lead School has developed its own high-quality learning content for students, teaching resources for teachers, technology integrations for schools to monitor the performance of students and a platform where parents can monitor their child’s academic performance.

The company sells this as an integrated solution to schools, especially affordable private schools in small towns.

Mehta said 80-85% of its customers are schools in tier II, III and IV towns, with the company having signed up a little over 800 schools so far.

“In the last few months, the ed-tech sector has evolved rapidly, changing the trajectory of the Indian education system multi-fold. We see great potential in Lead School, given their innovative and focused approach in ensuring accessible, quality school-level education for all,” said Sandeep Singhal, Managing Director, WestBridge Capital.

The Covid-19 pandemic has strengthened its position in the market, Lead School said, with schools having to immediately switch to online learning.

Client schools were able to complete the year’s curriculum because of the structured learning system that it had already put in place.

“Previously, schools were hesitant to adopt technology, but Covid-19 has shown people that the age-old ways are not going to work,” Mehta added.

Lead School has grown its network of schools from 150 to 800 in the past one year, and it hopes retain the growth momentum this year.

For WestBridge, this is its second big investment in ed-tech after Vedantu, in which it co-led a $42 million round with Tiger Global in August last year.

Since then, Vedantu has grown to be valued at $600 million, making it the third most valuable ed-tech startup in the country after Byju’s and Unacademy.