The year 2016 has become a bonanza for the education sector, which has received investments of $323 million -surpassing the previous high of 2014 when ed-tech companies raised $223 million. At 26, the number of deals this year was also over three times more than last year’s $98 million (23 deals).

Almost half of this year’s investments went to Bengaluru-based Byju’s Class, Founded by Byju Raveendran. The test preparation startup raked up almost $150 million this year through multiple rounds from Sequoia Capital, Sofina (a Belgium-based fund), Lightspeed Ventures and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, among others.

An interesting trend was that several companies with a focus on offline channels bagged funding with PE investors taking to regulated sectors.

CX Partners invested as much as $60 million in Nspira, a group firm of the Hyderabad based Narayana Group, while the Jain Group attracted $35 million by selling a 74% stake in the real estate assets of 12 of its K-12 schools to Cerestra Edu Infra Fund.

KLAY Prep Schools and Day Care raised $16 million from Peepul Capital and Kaizen PE. “Offline is thriving in a highly online focused ecosystem and that has given confidence for investments to come into the education sector,” said Karthik Reddy , Managing Partner, Blume Ventures. The VC firm has been one of the most active investors in the education space with investments in startups like Unacademy and Flipclass.

Source: The Times of India