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Edtech startup PhysicsWallah has raised $100 in Series A funding, becoming part of the list of unicorns in India. The company and its CEO, Alakh Pandey, have had a great journey. Westbridge and GSV Ventures funded the startup's first institutional round, which values the two-year firm at $1.1 billion (post-cash).
Unlike its bigger rivals, Byju's and Unacademy, which charge a fee in the tens of thousands of dollars for a course, PW charges students as little as $4 and, according to a person familiar with the matter, has racked up tens of thousands. of paying subscribers.
It is Alakh Pandey's love of teaching that has turned him into a successful business. When he was in school himself, Pandey began tutoring younger students to support his family amid financial difficulties, Twitter user Shreyans Singh, who frequently tweets new news, wrote in a thread on June 8. Business.
The 22-year-old from Allahabad (now Prayagraj), Uttar Pradesh, who had just dropped out of an engineering college in Kanpur, had been burning the midnight oil to thoroughly prepare for the second chapter of Class X Physics.
After leaving engineering in his third year, Pandey returned to his hometown, joined an institute in Allahabad to teach physics, and had the opportunity to work at another coaching academy.
The idea was to maximize revenue. The young dropout had been receiving 5,000 rupees per month from his first night training class. "I didn't want to miss out on this opportunity to double my salary," recalls Pandey, who started taking classes when he was in class 8.
His first date with the coach occurred when he cycled a few miles to teach half a dozen class 9 students when he was a freshman in high school. “The vibes you get teaching a group of curious students are great,” he stresses, adding that his bike was stolen when he was in class 12 and he couldn't afford a new one.
The newest entrant in the unicorn club, Physicswallah, plans to use the funds for business expansion, branding, opening more offline learning centers and introducing more course offerings, it said in a statement Tuesday. “This latest development will help us further our vision and implement new initiatives to increase students' learning journeys, enabling them to reach new heights in their careers. Our commitment remains that every dollar spent on Physicswallah is for the good of students,” co-founder Alakh Pandey was quoted as saying by the Economic Times.
“The company has been profitable since its inception with positive cash flows and reserves,” Alakh Pandey, founder and CEO of PW, said in a statement. “Our revenue increased ninefold in the year 2021-2022 compared to 2020-2021. Our current run rate for the fiscal year 2023 is $65 million,” he added.
“Since its inception, we have focused on providing high-quality education with affordability at the forefront, ensuring that students from all walks of life can continue their higher education and further their career paths without a hitch,” he added.
The startup's success comes at a time when several established edtech players are struggling and have cut their workforce in recent weeks.
Physicswallah represents a broader change in the Indian startup ecosystem. Urban India or "India1" as venture capitalist Sajith Pai categorizes it, appears to have largely run out, with only a few opportunities remaining. So it should come as no surprise that PW was one of the top deals many venture capitalists have been chasing for several quarters.
“With the help of PW's comprehensive, interactive and engaging educational content in the form of lectures, videos and notes, more than 10,000 students have cracked competitive exams like NEET and JEE in 2020 and 2021. The platform is proud that at least one student in six medical and one in 10 engineering colleges in India are PW alumni,” said PW.
The startup, which employs more than 1,900 people, including 500 teachers and more than 200 associate professors who respond to student queries, is working to launch educational content in nine vernacular languages, including Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, hates, Malayalam and Kannada. It also plans to deploy the fresh funds to open more physical learning centers.
“While many experts say that the flower of Indian edtech is out of the rose, we at GSV Ventures believe that the flowers are just beginning to bloom as extraordinary entrepreneurs are democratizing learning and skill delivery for the 90 % of India still untouched by the edtech revolution. ”, said Deborah Quazzo, managing partner of GSV Ventures, in a statement.
“One of those companies is PW (Physicswallah), which we are proud to be co-leading its first round of investment with WestBridge. Led by renowned YouTube STEM educator Alakh Pandey and technology executive Prateek Maheshwari, the company is revolutionizing the exam preparation market (today JEE and NEET) by offering the highest quality, low-cost solutions with high-quality results. extraordinary learning for more than 6 million students and growing. GSV Ventures' mission is for ALL people to have equal access to the future and PW is delivering on that mission AT SCALE.”
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