Edtech major Physics Wallah raises $210 million to hire talent, companies

BENGALURU: Edtech unicorn Physics Wallah on Friday announced the closure of its largest funding round, raising $210 million. India-focused hedge fund Hornbill Capital led the round, with participation from venture capital funds Lightspeed Venture Partners, GSV, and WestBridge Capital, bringing the company’s valuation to $2.8 billion.

The Noida-headquartered company plans to hire 1,000 employees over the next six to nine months to build capacity in existing businesses and support new initiatives, co-founder Prateek Maheshwari told TOI in an interview.

“We will be hiring across the board, including marketing, sales, technology, and business development, both for our main business and subsidiaries,” Maheshwari said, adding that the company’s total workforce currently stands at about 15,000.

In addition to investing in its existing business, Physics Wallah also plans to use the new funds for acquisitions. “We believe South India is a deep market, and we may evaluate assets that are strong in the region. We are also looking for companies rich in content and academics, such as publication houses, which we would like to merge with,” Maheshwari said.

Despite raising significant capital, founders Alakh Pandey and Maheshwari still retain 85% of the company’s equity, with only 15% diluted to institutional investors. This is a rare feat among Indian unicorns, which are startups with a valuation of $1 billion or more.

Incorporated as a company in June 2020, Physics Wallah initially began as a YouTube channel in 2016. Co-founder Pandey, a physics teacher on whom the company’s brand is built, returned to full-time teaching in May after a year focused on operations, team-building, and other tasks.

The company had last raised over $100 million in 2022 at a $1.1 billion valuation. Until then, Physics Wallah had been entirely bootstrapped. Over the years, the company has acquired several subsidiaries, including iNeuron, PW Skills, PW Institute of Innovation, and Xylem Learning.

The company's offline expansion contributed to a significant increase in employee costs and provisioning for certain non-cash expenses in FY23, leading to a sevenfold rise in total expenses. These expenses, including one-time costs and non-cash expenses, amounted to Rs 777 crore, compared with Rs 103 crore in the previous year.

However, revenue from operations tripled to Rs 772 crore in FY23 on a standalone basis, again due to the offline expansion. The FY24 financials have yet to be filed with the Registrar of Companies.

The massive funding for Physics Wallah comes at a time when Byju’s is undergoing insolvency proceedings, and other edtech incumbents such as Unacademy are also trying to expand through offline routes after facing stagnation post-Covid.