School-technology company Lead School is targeting revenue growth of nearly 20% in FY27 and expects operating EBITDA to rise approximately threefold to Rs 90 crore as it expands its artificial-intelligence products. Cofounder and chief executive Sumeet Mehta expects the company to achieve net profitability or at least break even during the financial year, while preparing for a possible initial public offering between FY28 and FY29.
The company recorded operating revenue of approximately Rs 387 crore in FY26, up 10% from Rs 351 crore in the previous year. Operating EBITDA increased from Rs 4 crore to Rs 30 crore, while its net loss narrowed to about Rs 33 crore from Rs 43 crore.
FY26 revenue growth remained below Lead School’s earlier projection of 25% to 30%. A delayed rollout of Miss Curie, its AI-powered spoken-English product, was one of the principal factors. The company extended product testing as underlying AI models evolved and it evaluated learning outcomes before wider deployment. Disruption in its Middle East publishing operation and uncertainty surrounding new CBSE textbooks for grades nine and ten also delayed upselling.
Miss Curie is currently used by approximately 20,000 students across 70 schools. Lead School plans to expand the product to more than 500 schools during the coming year. The platform is designed to provide individual conversational practice and adaptive feedback in classrooms while returning students to teachers and peer interactions for the rest of the learning process.
The company’s Techbook product has already developed into a business generating roughly Rs 25 crore to Rs 30 crore. Management expects Miss Curie to reach a similar scale during the next financial year. Over the longer term, AI-enabled products could represent 25% to 30% of Lead School’s business.
Lead School works with approximately 9,000 active schools, compared with around 8,400 a year earlier. It signed roughly 900 new institutions during the year while losing about 300. Net revenue retention remained close to 100%, below the company’s 110% target, as delays in AI-product deployment and textbook-related upselling restricted expansion within existing accounts.
Management has revised its longer-term network goal from an earlier target of 60,000 schools to between 20,000 and 25,000 schools over five years. Lead School concluded that its comprehensive learning system requires extensive institutional transformation and is therefore unsuitable for rapid adoption across every private school. More modular products, including Miss Curie and its foundation programme, are expected to support wider penetration.
Learning systems generated about 76% of FY26 revenue, with publishing contributing the balance. Lead School acquired Pearson’s Indian kindergarten-to-grade-12 business in 2023 and has since been converting publishing clients into full learning-system customers. Approximately 100 schools were upgraded in each of the past two years, with a conversion increasing revenue per school by about three times.
Mehta, cofounder Smita Deorah and an existing investor recently infused Rs 21 crore to finance AI development. The company does not presently require external funding for organic growth, although it may raise capital for an acquisition. Its last major equity round was a $100 million transaction in 2022 at a $1.1 billion valuation.
