ISN Exclusive: Blume Ventures-backed Virohan looks to raise Rs 70 crore from Bessemer Venture Partners

Healthcare-focussed institute and online certification provider, Virohan, is raising Rs 60-70 crore or roughly around $7-8 million in a fresh funding round from Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP), sources have told IndianStartupNews (ISN).

BVP has been an investor in Swiggy, BigBasket, PharmEasy and several other companies.

This largely marks the return of edtech funding in the Indian ecosystem which was otherwise considered to be fraught with risk, thanks to giants like Byju’s and Unacademy struggling to stay afloat and reducing in size from their peak valuations in 2021. 

“Virohan however stands out, it is very close to finalising the round and will be valued at around $70-80 million as 10% is being diluted so BVP can come onboard,” a source tells. BVP and Virohan chose not to reply to ISN’s emails seeking details.

Virohan has gone over to raising capital when investors are more upbeat on the space. Their confidence comes from PhysicsWallah (PW) raising over $200 million last year, Erudtius finalising a $150 million deal with TPG, UpGrad, also a higher education company, raising $60 million from Singapore’s Temasek, an existing investor.

There’s more.

More recently, Emversity, an edtech founded by former Unacademy COO Vivek Sinha, also mopped up money. Separately, Leap and Bhanzu also raised fresh capital to establish that investors are not shying away from edtech investments anymore.

Meanwhile, at BVP, which has been busy inking deals, they are increasingly looking at consumer bets and even increasing focus on AI. On Wednesday, it hired Pankaj Mitra to lead AI and enterprise-tech bets in India. Mitra was earlier with tech titans like Cisco and Infosys.