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Samreen Ahmad · · 3 min readNo A+ here: Physics Wallah widens losses in FY2024
India-based unicorn Physics Wallah (PW), once hailed as one of the few profitable players in the edtech scene, has plunged deeper into the red for the financial year ending March 2024.
According to audited financial statements from business intelligence platform Tofler, the company’s loss multiplied by over 13x year on year, with expenses rising nearly 4x.
Physics Wallah co-founder and CEO Alakh Pandey / Photo credit: Physics Wallah
That said, its revenue jumped 161% over the same period.
Is the company’s aggressive expansion strategy driving it down the same path as embattled Byju’s, whose founder said is now effectively worthless? Or will its bold bet on an offline expansion pay off in the future?
PW declined to comment on Tech in Asia’s queries.
The offline bet
Physics Wallah started as a YouTube channel by teacher Alakh Pandey in 2016. It later launched as an edtech startup in 2020, with Prateek Maheshwari joining as a co-founder.
While expenses were up across the board, the biggest change was in other expenses, which include items such as advertising and promotional expenses, traveling allowance, legal charges, and rent. These rose by over 5x year on year.
Meanwhile, PW’s employee benefits expense nearly tripled between FY 2023 and FY 2024.
The edtech platform had over 10,000 staff as of August 2024, a 19% year-on-year rise. It aims to hire 1,000 more employees across various functions by March 2025.
In a September interview with Moneycontrol, PW’s co-founders expressed optimism about the company’s future, stating that “FY 2025 will be our highest absolute EBITDA year.”
They noted that the firm’s decision to invest in offline centers – a move initially met with skepticism – is also beginning to pay off.
In September, PW secured a US$210 million funding round – one of the largest in history for India’s edtech sector. Following this, it set a target to generate 10.5 billion rupees (US$125 million) in net revenue from its offline operations in FY 2025.
PW vs Byju’s
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The Indian edtech firm is placing a big bet on offline centers, aiming to generate US$125 million in net revenue from them.
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