The country’s largest edtech firm Byju’s may be in a soup, which many say is largely of its own making, but some of the smaller players are growing slowly and steadily. In fact, they have rebuffed bigger players wanting to take them over.
For instance, ArivuPro, an eight-year old bootstrapped edtech company that offers tutoring services to students preparing for financial examinations, has turned down buyout offers from Veranda Learning, and Unacademy.
“For last two months, Veranda Learning, and Unacademy, have held discussions with us exploring whether we are interested in cashing out. They also wanted to understand how are we able to post good numbers with minimal marketing spends,” Arjun Varadraj, CEO and founder of ArivuPro, told Fe.
“However, we don’t want to sell right now, as we would not get a good value. We have organically been able to build a business with 4.8-4.9 star review scores, while also being profitable. In the current context, we would like to move a little slow, and continue building on value. We remain open to collaboration, but aren’t up for sale right now,” he added.
Varadraj said that ArivuPro will post revenues of over Rs 8 crore in FY24, with a profit of around Rs 54 lakh. He said that in FY25, revenues will double to around 14 crore, with a profit of over Rs 1 crore.
Similarly, K12 Techno Services, which provides management services to ICSE and CBSE curriculum schools from kindergarten to class 12 under ‘Orchid, The International School’ brand, also does not want to sell out at the moment. The company turned profitable two years back.
“For the first five years we were iterating solutions, and obviously weren’t attractive to big players. Over the past few years, however, on the basis of our strong numbers and positive sentiment amongst users, we have received multiple such queries,” said Jai Decosta, MD and CEO of K-12 Techno Services, without naming the suitors.
“We aren’t keen on selling right now. What we increasingly realise is that there are very few players actually adding value in the space, and doing so in a sustainable manner,” he added.
K12 Techno Services is backed by Kedaara Capital, PeakXV, Navneet Education, and Sofina Ventures, and according to Decosta will close FY24 with a revenue of around Rs 400 crore. In FY23, it posted a revenue of Rs 250 crore. The company has raised around $100 million so far, and its latest funding round from Kedaara saw around Rs 1,300-1,500 crore coming in at an undisclosed valuation, while giving PeakXV a partial exit in September last year. It was valued at $280 million as of October 2021.
Varadraj of ArivuPro said that while the trouble at Byju’s may look bad for the overall edtech ecosystem, this isn’t how it’s playing out on the ground. “The demand for outcome driven edtechs remains strong. Now students are in fact more aware of what works and what does not work for them. This also applies to the startups, as the focus isn’t anymore on expanding as quickly as possible, and is instead on delivering results the right way,” he added.
