Physics Wallah Ventures Into School, Opens PW Gurukulam In Gurugram

Alakh Pandey-led edtech unicorn PhysicsWallah (PW) has ventured into offline education for primary classes with the launch of PW Gurukulam School. The school, located in Gurugram, will offer elementary education from play school to seventh grade.

The school has already enrolled 400 students in its inaugural batch. Its curriculum will be affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), PW said in a statement.

PW claimed that the school will provide the students education grounded in experiential learning. Its areas of focus would include financial literacy and entrepreneurship, enhanced by programmes such as Model United Nations (MUN), the statement added.

Commenting on the launch of the school, Pandey said, “The school will be a canvas for students to paint their futures with immersive and transformative learning. At PW Gurukulam, we aim to offer education that covers a wide spectrum and will enable them to choose from limitless possibilities rather than conventional career paths.”

The inauguration of the elementary school marks the startup’s foray into offline primary education. Founded in 2020 by Alakh Pandey and Prateek Maheshwari, PW provided coaching to IIT/JEE and NEET aspirants. However, it has lately expanded its portfolio to other segments like postgraduate programmes, UPSC preparation, and upskilling courses.

The startup, which began as a YouTube channel, has been expanding its footprint over the last few years. Amid the slowdown in the edtech sector after the end of the Covid-19 pandemic, PW, like many other edtech startups, entered the offline market.

It opened its first offline centre in June 2022 in Rajasthan’s Kota. It currently has 67 offline centres, PW Vidyapeeth, across 38 cities and claims to have a student base of nearly 1.5 Lakh. It aims to increase the number of these centres to over 120 in 2024.

In December last year, PW, which entered the unicorn club in 2022 after a $100 Mn funding round, said its revenue from operations jumped 3.3X year-on-year (YoY) to INR 771.76 Cr in the financial year 2022-23 (FY23). However, the startup didn’t disclose its bottom line for the year.

The latest development comes at a time when the Indian edtech sector is amongst the hardest hit by the ongoing funding winter. While BYJU’S, once the poster boy of the edtech ecosystem, is going through a crisis, other startups have also not remained unaffected by the funding winter.

From layoffs to cost-cutting exercises, the Indian edtech startups have been taking a number of measures to survive through the funding winter. Besides, many edtech startups also shut operations amid the funding crunch.