Meet The Headmasters

Sequoia Capital has bet big on edtech, with over a dozen investments, including in industry giants Byju’s and Unacademy

- RAJIV SINGH

A section of Christ College wore a festive look over the weekend. It was the last Sunday of July. July 27—GV Ravishankar still has the date saved on his Google calendar. How can the managing director of Sequoia India forget the day? The mood inside the college auditorium was electric. Restive schoolchildren— from classes 5 to 12—and their twitchy parents were jostling for every inch of space; everybody was glued to the big white screen on the empty stage. The class was about to start. The spectators were waiting patiently to see the teacher.

Ravishankar, sitting in one of the last rows, was also eager to hear the pitch. He looked edgy though. Two visuals were playing on his mind. The first was the giant Byju’s hoarding which he unfailingly noticed hanging on a building next to the flyover every time he travelled from the Bengaluru airport towards the city.

The second thought that bugged the seasoned venture capitalist (VC) was the joke doing the rounds at the office of India’s biggest VC firm. “There was a reputation at Sequoia—that we meet and pass every opportunity in education,” he says. The jibe had roots in the fact that the marquee VC fund had managed to invest in just two education-focused startups since 2006. Reason: The fund didn’t find anything super exciting. “We were in no hurry to pull the trigger,” recounts Ravishankar. This time, though, he was hoping to change the script.