Smita Deorah, Co-founder And Co-CEO, LEAD: An Entrepreneur With a Purpose LEAD was born with the conviction that education should be the prerogative of every child, irrespective of background or location
By S Shanthi
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.
Prior to co-founding LEAD, Smita Deorah, co-founder and co-CEO, LEAD spent nine years at Procter & Gamble in Singapore and India, where she led the finance, treasury and strategy verticals. While this professional journey was enriching and filled with deep learning, she was always interested in working in education. So, she and her co-founder Sumeet Mehta returned to India with the intent to do something meaningful and give back to our country.
First, they started Sparsh, an NGO for the upliftment of Anganwadis in Mumbai, where the couple implemented a 'pre-school in a box' solution in 16 Anganwadis to prepare students for school, and to reduce dropouts and boost attendance. Then, in 2012, LEAD was born with the conviction that education should be the prerogative of every child, irrespective of background or location. They began by setting up their own school on the outskirts of Ahmedabad with 14 students. Today, the startup has grown to 3500+ affordable private schools (APS) across India.
"With ~280 million students across roughly 1.5 million schools, India has the largest school-going population in the world. A vast majority of these students go to schools in India's small towns. Unfortunately, most of these schools are beset by a lack of access to meaningful yet affordable solutions contextualized for their realities, and thus deliver poor student learning outcomes. In other words, student talent and aptitude is equally distributed, but opportunity is not. This is the problem that LEAD is solving, by using technology and a curriculum and pedagogy to make excellent education both accessible and affordable for all children," says Deorah.
The edtech unicorn's APS network currently reaches 1.2 million+ students and 25,000+ teachers across 400+ cities. The startup claims to be on its way to achieving 2X growth, with strong unit economics and a clear path to profitability. "Inorganic growth is an important part of our strategy and we have recently acquired Pearson's local K-12 learning business in India, in alignment with our plans to expand our presence into new school segments," she says.
Students of APS in India are particularly disadvantaged due to massive learning gaps, especially in English, resulting in poor learning across all subjects. Bridging this gap and helping students reach grade level English language skills in a short duration was a big challenge for the co-founders, which the startup solved through its program ELGA, (English Language and General Awareness), which teaches language as a skill. This, Deorah, says is one of her biggest achievements so far.
LEAD'S current priority is to continue solving the needs and challenges of APS in India's small towns, while growing its presence across school segments. Deorah aspires to reach 60,000 schools and 25 million students by 2026 by shaping a self-sustaining, fast-growing school edtech ecosystem.
FACTSHEET
- Number of women employed by your organization: One-third of the workforce
- Total employees: ~2000
- Current turnover of your enterprise: FY 2021 - 22 revenue was ~INR 142 Cr
- Launch year of the company: 2012
- Funding stage: $100 million in Series E funding last year
