Prakhar Kasar, former MakeMyTrip executive, joins Hero Vired as CEO to drive growth in the online education market.
Hero Vired, founded in 2021, offers online certification programs in various tech and business fields, competing with established edtech companies.
The appointment occurs amid a significant funding crunch in the Indian edtech sector, with investments dropping 88% YoY to $283 million in 2023.
Hero Vired, the Hero Group’s online education company for professionals, has roped in Prakhar Kasar as its chief executive officer.
This appointment comes at a time when the company is looking to drive its growth and disrupt the online education market.
With over 16 years of experience across sales, marketing and revenue streams, Kasar has previously worked with companies like PepsiCo and MakeMyTrip.
Most recently, he served as the vice president and business head at MakeMyTrip’s corporate travel solution provider MyBiz.
“His (Kasar’s) proven ability to scale businesses and build high-performing teams makes him the ideal leader to take Hero Vired to new heights,” said Hero Vired’s founder Akshay Munjal.
Founded in 2021 by Munjal, Hero Vired is a New Delhi-based edtech platform for professionals and higher education aspirants. The startup is a venture of the Hero Group that offers online certification programmes in data science, machine learning, AI, finance, fintech, game design, full-stack development and business analytics.
It competes with edtech companies in the likes of Eruditus, Vedantu and upGrad.
“In the immediate future, we’ll focus on enhancing B2C offerings, particularly our live learning experiences that cater to a premium audience. Looking ahead, we see significant opportunities in the B2B and B2I markets, as well as potential to reach new consumer segments,” said Kasar.
It is pertinent to note that the appointment comes against the backdrop of the Indian edtech sector undergoing a massive funding crunch.
Unlike the tendency shown by VCs and PEs before the pandemic wherein they infused billions of dollars during the height of the pandemic, the segment has witnessed a waning interest of the investor as the schools and colleges opened post-lockdown.
Besides this, a slew of issues within the startups in the sector made the matter worse. This issue included heavy cash burn, mounting losses, and weak governance guardrails, among other issues.
Not to mention, the space was among the leading sectors in laying off the most number of employees over the past two years. Notably, as many as 24 edtechs have sacked more than 14,616 employees since 2022.
Even on the financial front, the sector’s heavyweights like BYJU’S, Unacademy, and UpGrad continue to post heavy losses, and names like Udayy, Supen Learn, and DUX Education have shut down operations in the last two years due to the funding crunch.
According to Inc42’s Indian Tech Startup Funding Report 2023, the Indian edtech startups raised $283 Mn in 2023 against $2.4 Bn in 2022, accounting for a massive 88% year-on-year (YoY) decline. The number of deals also plummeted 45.91% YoY to 139 in 2023 from 257 in 2022.
