Edtech Unicorn PhysicsWallah Acquires K-12 Segment

Edtech unicorn PhysicsWallah Acquires K-12 online learning platform for students situated in the UAE. By 2024, PhysicsWallah hopes to have expanded throughout the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region thanks to this acquisition. The newly acquired business would also receive funding from the ed-tech unicorn.
The founders of Knowledge Planet will continue to run the business and expand its activities in the GCC area as part of the agreement.

The change has occurred at a time when several Indian edtech behemoths, like BYJU’S, Unacademy, and upGrad, have moved into the Middle East and are now serving the region’s growing Indian diaspora.
Alakh Pandey and Prateek Maheshwari founded PhysicsWallah in 2020 to assist students in getting ready for competitive exams like NEET, JEE, GATE, UPSC, and CDS, among others.

In order to strategically scale operations and offerings, the edtech unicorn has signed a long-term joint venture (JV) with the online learning platform Utkarsh Courses.

Before to this, the Alakh Pandey-led PhysicsWallah received some negative news after a video of a fight between a student and an offline staff member went viral online. The incident happened in the offline centre for PhysicsWallah in Kota.

Also, it paid an undisclosed sum in late 2022 to purchase a nearly 19.5% share in the online learning platform iNeuron.

The startup’s net profit increased over 14X year over year (YoY) to INR 97.8 Cr in the fiscal year 2022 (FY22), while operational revenue increased by 9X to INR 232.5 Cr.
K–12 kids can take offline and online programmes at Knowledge Planet, which was founded in 2011 by Monika Oli and Sachin Bharti Gupta. Students who are NRIs (non-resident Indians) can also take test preparation sessions for the JEE and NEET exams.

Currently, the Dubai-based firm runs more than 12 locations around the UAE. According to its website, it claims to have provided services to more than 2500 pupils per year.

The acquisition news was announced when Indian edtech businesses were having financial difficulties. Issues affecting startups include a lack of funding, market inflation, the introduction of new schools and universities, and investors’ poor confidence.

As a result, many edtech unicorns including BYJU’S, Unacademy, Vedantu, and PhysicsWallah, have changed their business models and entered the offline market in the past two years.

Add to that the recent restructuring of operations, business models, and sales methods by edtech businesses in an effort to reduce costs. According to Inc42’s layoff tracker, similar startups have also reduced staff by more than 8200 since January 2022 while implementing cost-cutting measures.

The edtech startups DUX Education, Crejo, and Udayy all permanently discontinued business around the same time.