Bharti Airtel has acquired a strategic stake in ed-tech startup Lattu Kids as part of the Airtel Startup Accelerator Program. Lattu Kids is Mumbai based and offers digital learning means to kids focusing on developing English vocabulary, English reading, and Math skills. The startup caters to children below the age of 10 years through animated videos and games. The digital penetration made my affordable data charges and also affordable smartphones have led to the higher adoption of digital learning, the COVID pandemic has further pushed the adoption of virtual classrooms. Edtech in India is likely to become over $2 billion in the industry by 2021.
Airtel published this acquisition to the stock exchanges and said that the investment will allow it to add ed-tech to its premium digital content portfolio and give distribution scale to learning material from Lattu Kids. Presently, Airtel has more than 160 million active monthly users across its digital platforms including Airtel Thanks app, Airtel Xstream app, and Wynk Music. Adarsh Nair, Chief Product Officer, Bharti Airtel says “At Airtel, we strive to support the growth of the startup ecosystem through our digital platforms. And now more than ever, online education is a significant need for millions of young children who do not have access to regular classrooms”.
Vivek Bhutyani, Co-founder and CEO, Lattu Kids says that their vision with Lattu Kids is to influence learning results for young children in kindergarten to Grade 2. And also to guide them through digital content, gamification, and technology. They believe that Airtel is an equally enthusiastic partner and this synergy of this extent will provide an arena to scale up Lattu to kids of India across classes and make it a much-loved homegrown ed-tech brand.
“Lattu Kids is the fourth startup to become part of the Airtel Startup Accelerator Program. The accelerator allows startups to benefit from Airtel’s strengths in data, distribution, networks, and payments along with its online and offline distribution network that touches more than 300 million customers, deep market knowledge, and platform of global strategic partners,” Airtel stated.
