INDIAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT CALCUTTA ITS/2022/2 Ver: November 14, 2021 Ed-Tech in India: A Billion-dollar Quest The global Ed-tech market is pegged at $74 billion as of March 2021 and in the next 10 years is expected to balloon to more than $300 billion 1 with the Indian market alone accounting for $30 billion 2. With large players like Byju’s, Vedantu and Unacademy jostling for market dominance, the industry is increasingly focusing on using technology to make learning more personalized and interactive. Diversity in offerings and innovations in products may help firms reach a larger learner base, yet challenges of scalability with profitability remain. The pandemic accelerated the growth of Ed-tech firms, but can they keep up the momentum? Global Ed-tech Industry The modern Ed-tech can be traced back to the dot com bubble of the 2000s when there was a tech equivalent of the gold rush in the United States. The Internet boom began and entrepreneurs rushed in to cash-in on the diverse business opportunities it presented. Surprisingly, during the era of Encarta/Britannica CDs/DVDs, the first successful websites were not money-making businesses, but rather the open and free “Wikis”. The term “Wikis” was coined by Ward Cunningham. It refers to a collection or a community of coordinating participants, typically working online. Participants have the chance to add, track, edit and modify information - text, infographics, data on a platform creating a sort of virtual collaborative space. These wikis gave a boost to the online learning environment and in many ways, replaced the “physical library” model. This also meant students no longer needed to purchase the expensive DVDs/CDs/encyclopaedias offered by commercial firms. Instead, students had access to free information at the click of a button. Although Wikis were disruptive, the model did have an inherent challenge. Most of the information available on wikitype channels was not verified, was scattered, and lacked the dedicated indexing, which a paid service would have provided. Moreover, with shortening attention spans and widening troughs between the learnings of a college and the expectations of the industry, there was a dire need for curated content, a one-stop-shop, where students will not have to browse through multiple articles, websites, footnotes in order to upgrade their knowledge. This paved the way for modern-day MOOCs. With institutions adapting to a cultural shift towards online education, there was a rising number of education and portal-based service providers. IMS 3 was one of the first to set up a code of conduct and guidelines on how live classes could be conducted. IMS also helped setup services like prerecorded classes, online assignments, registration, etc. SCORM 4 was one of the other industry standards. By 2002, many Ivy League colleges had already started setting up online systems, there was a wave of Open Education Resource (OER) movement, such as the MIT-pioneered Open Courseware 5. By 2004, fully-developed functional learning management systems which served as a one-stopshop for student-teacher-based digital classroom interaction models were available. Many of these systems were easily scalable given their cloud computing or SaaS-based 6 and could be implemented MBA Class of 2022, Rushali Atul Prakash Saxena and Jaskirat Singh, under the guidance of Professor Priya Seetharaman of Indian Institute of Management Calcutta developed this case study for class discussion, based on published sources only. The interpretation and perspectives presented in the case do not reflect those of Byju’s, Vedantu, Unacademy or any of their employees. The authors may have disguised certain names and other identifying information to protect confidentiality. This case has been written for internal discussion only. Authors’ Copyright © 2021 1 across institutions. Academic institutions were able to get the best of both worlds - backend support and technical assistance as well as a single end-to-end enterprise solution. Amongst the early startups in this space was Khan Academy. What was started accidentally by Sal Khan, to help his cousin, set in motion a new wave of Ed-tech. Sal was a Harvard, MIT graduate working as a young hedge fund analyst. He chanced upon a gap in the models of education in premier league academic institutions when he shared a video with his cousin Nadia, who could not understand a concept in Advanced math. He started tutoring her through Yahoo doodle. Not only did the cousin whom he tutored ace her exam after studying from his Yahoo doodles on Advanced Math, but word spread and more people began demanding his classes. Within a few weeks of posting his video on YouTube, Sal got thousands of hits 7. What began as MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) also led to the emergence of strategized Ed-tech startups working on a variety of revenue models. Taking a leaf out of the books of their American counterparts, Chinese startups began to mushroom. Companies like 17zuoye, inspired by Chegg’s business model (founded in 2005), set up a platform where people could discuss and get their homework solutions. They also expanded to provide a space for students and their teachers to interact on a virtual platform, along with parents who could pitch in and collaborate. 17zuoye began its journey in 2011 but grew from a few hundred students to millions by 2020. It became the largest online Ed-tech startup in China by 2020 and has also begun large-scale trials with AI in learning8. The global Ed-tech sector is largely divided into five segments based on user requirements: • Pre-K 12 - Young pre-schooling students with requirements of basic cognition training, interactive gamified learning, and pronunciation skills. • K 12 - Coursework, assignments, classroom teaching environment • Higher Education - Multipurpose portals, statistical tools for research • Upskilling - Job-based skill training, industry-specific latest tech, hands-on workshops • Technology Providers - LMS portals, architecture for academic support Amongst these, Pre-K12 segment was a sector needing urgent attention and ripe for disruption post-2010. With the widespread availability of digital resources and smart classroom setups, it was obvious that the next frontier for churning out the new set of industry leaders would be preschool. Startups like Tynker and Kidaptive opened their doors at the same time, from the beating pulse of the Silicon Valley. Using adaptive technologies, these startups tended to personalize their content for the relatively malleable young learners. Countries like Sweden, with their presence in the top-10 lists of most education indices, were pushing the frontiers of Ed-tech rapidly with startups like Sana Labs using scientists and researchers from Apple, NASA, etc., designing their education programs. Startups like Kognity (digital textbooks) and Daily Bits Of (email newsletter, subscription-based, bite-sized learning focused) were also notable names pioneering in this landscape. 2 Ed-tech in India: The beginning Although home to the oldest educational institutions in the world, India was quite late to the party. Perhaps the first notable example in the Ed-tech revolution was a company called Educomp. Starting off as an IT maintenance and PC servicing company in 1995, they were primarily in the business of setting up computer labs subcontracted by the government. They graduated towards elearning platforms, setting up a subsidiary - Learning Mate Solutions Pvt Ltd., which subsequently launched a smart class program in 2003. This was a ground-breaking concept at that time when most of the institutions were still in the practice of using conventional textbook methods to impart education. Subsequently, the organization was awarded contracts from several schools, signed agreements with several state governments and an MOU from Raffles University, Singapore. Although Educomp was growing at a rapid pace with its profits swelling from 60 million in 2006 to 1.8 billion by 2012 and its market capitalization touching 7000 crores in 2009, its fundamental business model built on the promises of being a software-first company seemed to have been overshadowed by the hardware heavy (high capex) component of its offerings. The infrastructural deficiencies in Indian schools, the absence of a full background check on the schools it was dealing with, contractual agreements with schools largely on a monthly subscription fee proved to be millstones around Educomp’s neck. The company also tried to rework its balance sheet to make it more attractive by reducing its debt, using a private company called “EduSmart” 9. The fall of Educomp, amongst other things, was attributed to its unsustainable business model. However, Educomp’s had its share of social impact by changing the way the next generation of students interacted with their teachers. Over 50000 schools had been equipped with the latest IT infrastructure and it was quite unthinkable for any upcoming school to not have a computer lab. The new systems were much more interactive, retentive and made concepts easier to grasp. Vocational training programs appeared attractive alternative learning to students. Other upcoming businesses learnt from Educomp’s mistakes, and kept sustainability and scalability in mind. As the phoenix of the Indian Ed-tech industry burnt, many new things rose from its ashes 10. The Big 3 in India BYJU’S In 2021, Byju Raveendran, the co-founder of Ed-tech start-up Byju's had a lot to think about. Byju’s had recently raised a fresh round of Series F funding to the tune of $560 Million while standing at $16.5 billion valuation. The year 2021 was an eventful year for the Indian Ed-tech space, with over $1.89 billion raised and one company in particular, i.e., Byju’s raised more than 50% of it, through a series of four rounds. Byju’s had come to dominate the sector, bigger than the next 10 companies combined in terms of market value. With recent acquisitions of companies like Whitehat Junior (a coding teaching company for pre-teens) and Aakash Institute (an offline test prep center), it was all set to capture a huge chunk of the K-12 segment pie. However, with competitors mushrooming in this segment from various parts of the country, it was a tough task maintaining a profitable and sustainable strategy, especially when the company was eyeing a potential IPO next year. The K-12 segment was highly fickle, requiring an optimum standard of teaching. Although Indian households showed a high degree of budget sensitivity, the percentage of household income spent on education has shown an increase from 3.6% in 2011-12 to 4.5% in 2018-19 11. Furthermore, Byju’s identified the need for expansion to increase its market share. There was a possibility that the K-12 segment may get saturated. Raveendran has been exploring the possibilities of expanding in 3 other sectors as well. Byju’s was also eying the global markets, with plans to debut in the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Indonesia, and Mexico in 2021, as well as expand into more markets later in the year 12. Growing Years Byju Raveendran was an engineer by background and would help his friends prepare for the CAT exam, a national level entrance exam to the IIMs. He himself was a CAT topper and National Mathematics Olympiad Winner 13. What began as a hobby grew into a passion for teaching. Byju Raveendran and Divya Gokulnath 14 founded Think & Learn Pvt. Ltd. in 2008, initially catering to management entrance tests and civil services exam12. Eventually, they expanded to include other offerings but retained the broad philosophy of creating content which is contextual and visual 15, focusing on the why’s and the how’s along with the what’s of learning 16. 2012 was an important year for the Ed-tech startup. They began using technology to enable selflearning by students. The company had tie-ups with high-quality teachers for subject-specific focus. Such focus on quality was well received by the students, leading to 60% enrolment through references. The company grew from catering to 200 students in 2008 to 20,000 in 201213. By collaborating with Education Times, Byju’s held Free Mock Karnataka CET 17. They conducted live classes in a stadium with 25000 students in which shortcut strategies and tips to ace exams were shared with young learners 18. Young people rushing to attend classes by a single person caught the eye of Ranjan Pai, Manipal Group. Finding Byju Raveendran’s idea as transformational, the company received its first funding of $10 million from the Manipal Group. The company used the funding money to expand, setting a target for itself at ₹100 crores of revenue in the subsequent 3 years, aspiring to also enter the school segment in Maths and Science 19. Byju’s entered the K12 segment in 2013, through K12 tablets15 and by 2014 began launching pre-loaded tablets with practice tests, animations, and adaptive text 20. Byju’s classes, in their early days were expensive and could cost ₹ 6,000 - 50,000 a year. They even started organizing Talent search exams for class 9-12 students where top 50% of students could get 100% scholarships for their foundation courses 21. Students could also opt for fee payment in monthly instalments instead of upfront fees. The Byju's Learning App was launched in 2015, garnered 5.5 million downloads, with 250,000 students signing up for regular use through annual subscriptions, and witnessed an average engagement rate of 40 minutes/day and to their own surprise, 90% renewal in subscriptions15. The firm believed that on an average Indians spent 7x more time on smartphones than their TV, making it a viable means to engage. Their app now uses cutting-edge data analytics and machine learning techniques to provide personalized insights to the students across its instruction and assessment mechanisms 22. Unlike the conventional linear model of learning, the app allows a student access to content at a pace they are comfortable with, get personalised recommendations drawing upon their previous learning patterns 23. Byju’s 500-member R&D team not only specialises in content creation, media production and technology but are also focused on creating gamified learning experiences which can engage young audiences who often have difficulty retaining focus 24. They are hired from top-tier institutes and are tasked with providing a superior personalized experience to learners 25. In June 2016, revenues reached ₹ 30 Crores 26. Its stellar growth attracted funding from Aarin Capital, Sequoia, and Sofina, which it had planned to use to enhance its offerings and to expand globally 27. The year 2019 marked a milestone in Byju’s journey when it touched revenues of 1,430 crore, making it profitable for the first time. The company had 35 million registered users, with close to 4 2.4 million paid subscribers 28. Indian parents' willingness to spend on children's education 29 and the firm’s deeper rural and semi-urban penetration played a significant role in its growth 30. By launching its unique Parent Connect App, Byju's was designed to include parents in a child's educational progress aiming to make them more participative less authoritative24. Expansion By 2016, Byju's had transformed from a classroom-based to an app-focused business model, with 90% of its business coming from the app itself. While it already had international presence through its market in the Middle East25 it was only in 2017 with its acquisition of TutorVista and Edurite from Pearson Plc., did it start looking towards the US, UK, South Africa and other markets 31. TutorVista had 70% of its online traffic from the US, and operated in K-12 schools management, technologies for schools, online tutorials, and test prep segments. The Edurite platform sold educational CDs and DVDs and provided Byju's access to schools in India 32. The same year, Byju's also acquired Vidyartha – a career guidance and student-assessment platform 33. All the while, the use of an SD card-based approach to load content in devices was advantageous where internet connectivity was poor. The internet was, however, becoming cheaper in India providing the company alternative channels for personalised user experience 34. To strengthen its brand recall, Byju's partnered with PVR Cinemas for a 2-month long campaign during school summer vacations. Movie audiences were given free redeemable Byju's vouchers worth ₹ 2,000 to try a course of their choice for a month. This targeted both parents and children across 126 PVR cinemas and 579 screens across 50 cities 35 essentially painting the silver screens with Byju's trademark purple splash. The same year, Byju's launched its new logo and a massive ad campaign featuring Shah Rukh Khan, targeting audiences in Tier II and III cities, resulting in a massive recall particularly during the world cup cricket 36. Meanwhile, two other startups – Unacademy and Vedantu were rapidly rising through the ranks. UNACADEMY The sapling of an idea for an online education platform was planted in Gaurav Munjal’s mind, when he posted a video explaining an engineering concept online back in his undergrad days and it received quite a prominent reception. By 2016, what was just an idea took a formal shape through Unacademy. After the company was joined by veterans in this field like Hemesh Singh and Roman Saini, it started online tutoring with a 150+ strong faculty and well-respected IAS trainers and celebrities like Kiran Bedi. It began attracting audiences through its free tutorials on YouTube with around 500,000 people following its videos in the first year itself. By 2018, Unacademy already had more than 4000 tutors on board. Raising additional funds through a Series C to the tune of $21 million gave it a shot in the arm. It started expanding its course offerings and widened the educator base further while also making plans for international expansion 37. The firm was acting as an aggregator for quality teachers – an active 3000 of them with plans to expand to 10000; and connecting them with students who were generating 100 Million views a month 38. The year 2019 was an interesting year for the company as it introduced Unacademy Plus, a paid subscription model, where students could access content of a particular field or any competitive exam for a small fee, but more importantly, students would get alternative teachers to choose from 39. Although the firm believes its USP is driven by three fundamental product aspects – low pricing, quality of its content and a seamless user experience, critics argue that it may get wedged between two very distinct operating models, one for structured test-prep for government 5 exams and another for the younger candidates appearing for the under-graduate entrance exams 40. Also, unlike Byju’s K12 segment focus, Unacademy’s primary participants are test-takers who are rarely repeat subscribers. Those who clear the competitive exams will not need its offerings again. Word of mouth among learners therefore becomes the primary reputation driver to ensure a steady stream of test-takers. Despite these inherent contradictions in its business model, the pandemic year saw Unacademy rapidly acquire firms and close seven deals in the 12 months between March 2020 and February 2021 primarily driven by the funds that it has been able to raise 41. While these two startups were fighting for identity in the education space another mammoth in the name of Vedantu has been in the making. VEDANTU Origin In October of 2014, Vamsi Krishna was occupied with a series of discussions launching his company Vedantu, an online tutoring platform. The name of the company was derived from Sanskrit words Veda (knowledge) and Tantu (network). This was his second venture after offline test prep center Lakshya 42 – a firm established in 2006 and subsequently partly acquired by MT Educare in 2012 43. Vamsi was a visionary in many senses. For one, he believed in the increased democratization and transparency 44 while focusing on pedagogy which could make learning interesting and therefore more effective 45. In the early days of Lakshya, he observed students flocking to coaching hubs in some concentrated parts of India generating immense revenues for the local businesses. Unfortunately the teaching in these institutes was hardly interactive. Along with his three other friends Pulkit Jain (later Co-Founder & Head of Product of Vedantu), Saurabh Saxena (later Co-Founder & Head of Academics of Vedantu), and Anand Prakash (later Co-Founder of Vedantu), Lakshya’s journey started with an experiment - a JEE test prep institute in one of the small towns in Punjab – Barnala 46. The idea was to test the theory that the quality of teaching can produce geniuses of people coming from not so ambitious backgrounds. Surely so, their experiment started yielding results. In the first year itself, 11 students of a small batch from Lakshya went on to enter the top 7 IITs46. Growth After expanding to more locations and continuing their gold run, Vamsi and his friends further took on a more radical experimentation 47. They decided to break down the rules of traditional teaching pedagogy and observe what would happen45. As a first step to personalisation, they dropped the common study material requirement, which was often typical used by coaching centers. They also removed the system of checks on teacher’s performance in place giving them full freedom to choose their method of teaching. It became obvious to them that this greatly improved the proactiveness and creativity of the teachers with teachers often going the extra mile to generate interest in the subject 48. Introducing a mix of online and offline teaching, they designed a cloudenabled, device-based teaching, using virtual whiteboards, audio-video tools and online-based doubt solving. In addition to these, the platform’s democratized teacher review system and personalized learning experience combined with use of data analytics to map relevant teachers with students for optimised learning helps enhance student-teacher engagement 49. On the teachers’ side, by tracking 6 76 different parameters including speech, voice modulation, child’s response to teacher’s interaction, Vedantu uses this information to train the teachers better and revamp content 50. While both Byju’s and Vedantu were trying to make the learning aspect more personalized and interactive, what made Vedantu stand apart was its focus on the overall development of the student. Both firms were rapidly increasing the maturity of technology in their offerings. Vedantu was already using technology in their classes from providing personalized e-coaching to using their inhouse software – Whiteboard Audio-Video Environment (WAVE) 51. Byju’s, on the other hand, was venturing into AI-based interactive content through some of its recent acquisitions. The pandemic presented both these firms a unique opportunity for accelerated growth particularly through their slew of acquisitions and the need to take a relook at the degree of technology enablement of their business models. The Pandemic and beyond The stay-at-home orders and repeated lockdowns meant the Ed-tech industry in India was looking at a revolution. The K-12 segment shifted rapidly towards online teaching but not all academic institutions were ready. In similar vein, offline coaching institutions and exam-prep centres faced a massive challenge. Apart from the pandemic-related issues, their fundamental business models also demanded a rethink. Institutes like Allen, FIITJEE, Aakash, charged anywhere between ₹1 - 4 lakhs annually, and still have unmet demand. Practices such as “topper’s batches”, fee lock-in-periods, large batch sizes and high-volume offline course material were becoming contrary to students’ expectations. These practices were overcome by the online startups, where lack of geographical constraints meant easy availability of teachers, potential for customisations such as free-trials, flexible fee plans, post-class doubt sessions not to mention the possibility of tech-enabled personalised learning monitors. Ed-tech startups like Byju’s and Vedantu which already had scalable technology in place welcomed the potential business that the pandemic brought forth. Their focus quickly shifted to acquiring new customers and re-orienting the platforms to suit the online live classes. Both Byju’s and Vedantu followed a strategy of aggressive sales calls and digital marketing in order to increase their customer acquisition which paid off in the short run (Exhibit 2). They also began expanding through acquisitions funded by VC and angel funding. In 2020 alone, Byju’s had raised more than $1 billion from investors including UBS Group, Blackstone, sovereign fund ADQ, US-based VC Bond Capital, Baron Funds, Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin’s B Capital Group, and US-based hedge fund XN Exponent Holding 52 amongst others. Byju’s acquired nine companies since 2017, including LabInApp, Toppr, Sholr, Osmo, Whitehat, Great Learning 53, and more recently AESL (Aakash) Gradeup and HashLearn, while Vedantu has taken a more conservative cautious approach to both funding as well as acquisitions – bringing in Instasolv, a doubt-solving app and AI-enabled learning platform Pedagogy. Vedantu’s funding has touched over $200 million across four rounds with an expected valuation of $1 billion 54. Unacademy, on the other hand, had secured funding from VCs and private investors including General Atlantic, Facebook, Nexus Ventures, Blume Ventures, and Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy. The firm was last valued at $ 2 billion and has acquired amongst others Wifistudy, Kreatryx, Mastree, Directi (CodeChef), TapChief, Coursavy covering a range of markets including test-prep, K12 apart from the enterprise career growth training space 55. 7 Challenges galore While the unprecedented accelerated growth brought forth growing pains and teething scalability troubles, other challenges also began to plague the Ed-tech industry. WhiteHat Junior, which primarily focused on educating young kids on how to code, was accused of airing misleading ads commoditising children and overpromising what they could deliver, exhorting parents to kickstart their child’s journey to create the next billion-dollar idea 56. Byju’s, which had acquired WhiteHat Jr. has itself been accused of using inorganic sales pressure tactics to pursue expansion and promoting a toxic work culture 57. Questions have also been raised about the privacy policies of Edtech firms which are often seen as having significant influence on career decisions, moderating content without regulatory approvals, also using student profiling for creating content not to forget the potential such practices may have in leading to unemployment of conventional educators 58. These challenges pose serious dilemmas for Ed-tech startups, a sector that especially involves young children in their formative years. Extreme sensitivity and care are critical when designing products and offerings for them. Impatience may hardly help, as was seen in the case of Educomp. On the other hand, slower growth attracts the wrath of eager investors. Will Raveendran, Vamsi and Gaurav continue the careful tread? With the changing behaviour of consumers during the postpandemic era and the recent ban in China, will the industry leverage what it is worth? What also remains to be seen is whether this market will see more consolidation and which sectors can the giants scale into after mount K12 has been conquered ! 8 Exhibit 1: The Indian Ed-tech Market Source: https://medium.com/@sankara2514/the-indian-edtech-market-240-startups-that-are-building-the-future-of-education-f76dff30490c Exhibit 2: The Big 3 in Ed-tech and their base Subscribers (in Monthly Visits Company ‘000s, 2020) (July 2021) Byju's 2400 4,33,99,486 Unacademy 350 74,85,219 Vedantu 75 2,17,11,930 Monthly Visits - Growth Rate (July 2021) 5.69% 7.96% 7.10% Source of data: Crunchbase, Statista Exhibit 3: Ed-tech Market in India by segments Source of data: Statista 9 Exhibit 4: Top 10 funding received by Ed-tech companies in India as of 2020 Ed-tech company Byju's Unacademy Vedantu Eruditus Toppr NextEducation Cuemath VARSITY Auxilo LeadSchool Funding in million $ 2320 354 206 161 107 68.9 67.2 61.6 50.8 39.4 Source of data: Statista Exhibit 5: Number of M&As in different sectors in India across 2014-2020 Source of data: Statista 10 Endnotes 1 Market Study Report LLC (2020, May 24). 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