PhysicsWallah Boosts Offline Presence, Announces 26 New PW Vidyapeeth Centres

The move comes after the edtech unicorn announced the launch of 50 additional PW Vidyapeeth centres in May. Having launched its first offline centre in June 2022 in Rajasthan’s Kota, PW Vidyapeeth currently operates 67 centres across 38 cities in India, with a student base of nearly 1.5 Lakh students.

The announcement also comes months after the edtech unicorn announced an investment of $10 Mn in PW Vidyapeeth. PhysicsWallah plans to invest $5 Mn in the first phase to set up infrastructure for its school-integrated course. Afterwards, the remaining $5 Mn will be deployed towards creating content, development of pedagogy and academic upgradation of schools.

As for the PWNSAT, the test will be available in both online and offline formats and is open to students in grades 6 to 12, as well as those who have dropped out but are preparing for JEE or NEET exams.

Ankit Gupta, CEO of Vidyapeeth Offline, PhysicsWallah, said, “At PW, we firmly believe in the hybrid approach as the way forward. By expanding our tech-enabled offline Vidyapeeth centres across cities, our goal is to ensure access to quality education for students in their own towns, eliminating the need for them to relocate to education hubs in distant cities.”

Gupta added that last year, 1.1 Lakh students benefitted from the PWNSAT scholarships, worth more than INR 120 Cr. “Continuing the same, this year, we are providing scholarships worth INR 200 Cr,” added Gupta.

Edtech startups across the country, especially those who operate in the test prep segment, have been moving to a hybrid model, opening offline centres while also operating via their apps and websites. While BYJU’S acquired Aakash to foray into the offline coaching centres space, PW and Unacademy chose the organic method by building in-house divisions for offline coaching centres.

Founded in 2020 by Alakh Pandey and Prateek Maheshwari, PhysicsWallah competes with the likes of BYJU’S and Unacademy in India’s competitive exam prep space. The edtech startup turned unicorn in June 2022 after raising $100 Mn from Westbridge and GSV Ventures at a post-money valuation of $1.1 Bn.

Since being flush with capital, PhysicsWallah has been making acquisitions and investing heavily in business verticals beyond IIT/JEE and NEET prep. The edtech unicorn has made seven acquisitions since August 2022, with its latest acquisition coming in June 2023 in the form of Xylem Learning. PW acquired a 50% stake in Xylem to venture into South India.

The edtech unicorn also announced investing INR 100 Cr in its UPSC vertical and INR 120 Cr to shore up PW Skills, its skill development vertical.

PhysicsWallah is India’s only profitable edtech unicorn, having posted a net profit of INR 97.8 Cr in FY22, 14 times higher than INR 6.9 Cr in FY21.