Ed-tech firm LEAD Group targets partnering with 1,200 schools in 2026

With nearly 8,500 schools already on board, LEAD Group is planning its next growth phase ahead of a proposed FY28 IPO

Ed-tech unicorn LEAD Group, which partners with schools to deliver learning solutions, plans to expand its footprint by adding over 1,200 schools to its network in calendar year 2026, bringing the total to nearly 10,000. The company currently works with nearly 8,500 schools and typically onboards about 1,000 new schools each year.

 

While sharing the plans and priorities for this year, Sumeet Mehta, chief executive officer and co-founder of LEAD Group, said, “The biggest one is to add more schools, and we are looking at adding 1,200 in 2026. The second one is to ensure that our existing schools also grow, which we call value retention internally. The third pillar of growth will be to continue to upgrade some of those schools (that came with the acquisition of Pearson India’s K-12 business) to use technology and learning systems.”

 

Out of the 8,500 schools that LEAD Group has partnered with, 90 per cent of schools are based in non-metropolitan areas, and 50 per cent are in Tier-III and Tier-IV cities.

 

Interestingly, LEAD Group initially kicked off as an offline education platform, establishing its own schools. Starting in 2012, the company began its journey by setting up a school in the Areri village near Ahmedabad, and four more schools in Maharashtra, in Kurduvadi, Karmala, Akkalkot and Mangaon areas.

 

“We were running these five schools, and those were our learning labs. Our lesson plans, audiovisual content, assessments, teacher training, everything was developed for those teachers, and what happened was actually quite serendipitous,” Mehta said, adding that when the company started sharing the learning solutions with other schools, the overwhelming response led them to take a strategic decision to close their own schools and focus on partnering schools, thereby transitioning fully to an ed-tech firm in 2018. Mehta recalled that from ten schools initially, the company was able to onboard 500 schools within a few years.

 

Highlighting the company’s impact to date, Mehta said, “We serve 3.8 million students today, and the number of teachers who use our (learning) system is upwards of 60,000 by now. We are present in almost all the districts of India, and our far-flung schools, one is on the border of Myanmar, and the second is on the LOC (Line of Control), near Pakistan. That’s the extent of impact.”

 

In January 2022, the company raised $100 million in a Series E round at a valuation of $1.1 billion. The round, led by WestBridge Capital with GSV Ventures participating, followed a Series D round of $30 million nine months prior.

 

On fundraising in the near term, Mehta said, “My sense is that if we come across a good merger and acquisition (M&A) opportunity, we don’t want to wait for our internal surplus to grow. We might then look at a raise to fund that, but for our internal growth, we don’t need funding.”

 

The company is eyeing an initial public offering (IPO) in FY28. “My sense is it (IPO) will be in FY28. Whether we do it or not will depend on many things, but internally we will be ready in terms of the right profitability and internal structures,” Mehta added.

 

LEAD Group achieved an Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) of Rs 415 crore for AY25-26, representing 30 per cent growth over the previous academic year (July 2024–June 2025). The company closed FY25 with a revenue of Rs 367 crore and achieved operating EBITDA breakeven.