School edtech platform Lead on Tuesday announced that it has appointed Arvind Singhal as the chief growth officer and Arpit Jain as the chief financial officer. Arvind Singhal, former COO of Vedantu, will oversee the development and implementation of LEAD’s growth strategy, focusing on expanding its services to more schools and students across India. On the financial front, Arpit Jain, previously CFO, digital business and head – mergers & acquisitions at Marico, will take charge of the finance and legal functions of the group.
The development comes after the firm registered a two-fold revenue growth at Rs 132.37 crore in FY23, up from Rs 273.2 crore it generated in FY22. Cost-cutting efforts also helped the company control losses, which declined 18.5% to Rs 322 crore in FY23 against Rs 395 crore in FY22. Furthermore, it also managed to stabilise its operating cash outflows by 5.5% to `363 crore during the last fiscal year.
However, it is important to note that the company laid off around 90 employees in August, 2022.
It now aims to turn EBITDA positive by FY25, and cater to 11,000 by the beginning of the next academic year. “We’re set to enter new segments of schools and identify what is the nuanced need for which we can create a variant of an integrated system and help the schools adopt multimodal learning in this year,” the company said in a statement.
Founded in 2012, the platform provides integrated curriculum and technology solutions to private schools, encompassing books, workbooks, smart classes, teacher training, manuals, ERPs, and teaching aids.
In the last quarter of FY23, LEAD acquired Pearson India Education Services (K-12 business) for an estimated `15.5 crore, according to TheKredible. Having raised approximately `1,460 crore to date, lead turned unicorn in January 2022 with a valuation of `8,250 crore or $1.1 billion.