It is setting up new centers in cities like Udaipur, Pune, Akola and Indore, while doubling its efforts in cities like Mumbai, Bengaluru and Delhi. It is also expanding to new regions like Jabalpur, Pulwama, Baramulla and Chennai.
He educational technology firm, which closed a $210 million financing round on September 20It currently has 124 offline centers in 94 cities. With the addition of 75 more centres, this will take its offline presence to around 200 centres, primarily in North India, with plans to expand to South India.
Ankit Gupta, CEO of the WestBridge Capital-backed firm’s offline vertical hubs, told ET that revenue from the offline business so far in FY25 has grown 52% over last year. The offline business, which started in 2021, now contributes around 45% of the edtech company’s total revenue.
“We still believe that there is a huge space where we can also set up our physical centers because we want education to be accessible to the entire country,” he stated.
In the past, students had to travel to some cities like Kota, Lucknow and Delhi for training, incurring high costs beyond simple fees, Gupta said. “To make quality education more accessible, the idea was to open more centers in smaller towns and cities.”
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In FY24, the company’s consolidated revenue stood at Rs 2,000 crore, which is a 2.5 times increase over the previous year. In FY23, your net profit fell to 16 croresdown from Rs 98 crore in FY22, due to a significant increase in employee costs and provisioning for certain non-cash expenses. Its offline centers offer a curriculum for engineering and medical entrance exams. In the test preparation segment, it competes with the likes of Byju’s-owned Aakash Institute, Bodhi Tree-backed Allen Career Institute and SoftBank-backed Allen Career Institute. an academy.
Several edtech companies, including Unacademy, have shifted to an offline model to expand their business after seeing a slowdown in their online operations following the Covid pandemic-driven surge.
The Noida-based startup has invested around Rs 400 crore in its hybrid and offline centres, Vidyapeeth and Pathshala. Vidyapeeth centers offer offline classes powered by technologywhile Pathshala offers an offline environment where students are guided by two teachers: one who conducts online lessons and another who is physically present to resolve doubts and queries.
The company plans to invest in Vidyapeeth and Pathshala models to expand in tier II and IV cities, for which it will invest another Rs 100-150 crore next year.
“The idea behind Pathshala is that in tier III and IV cities there is not much access to quality education. There is no good offline infrastructure or coaching facilities available, so we want to make education accessible to those cities as well,” said Gupta. Of the 77 centres, 30 will be Pathshala centers and 45 will be Vidyapeeth centres.
Founders Alakh Pandey and Prateek Maheshwari told ET that the newly raised funds will be used to expand its offline presence, diversify into new regions and potentially consider acquisitions.
In 2022, the startup raised its first institutional round of $100 million at a valuation of $1.1 billion. The Indian edtech sector in 2024 has raised $215 million in funding so far, compared to $321 million last year.
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