Edtech unicorns go hybrid to tap India's $180 billion education sector

Innovations and strategies in the works to build offline presence

Nestled in a lane on Pusa Road, one of the busiest areas of Delhi, and surrounded by traditional educational institutions and hospitals, is the newly launched experience store of education technology company Unacademy. Step inside and you’re greeted with an “experience zone” where a range of devices display information about the company’s offerings. “Failure, the fuel of champions.” “Mistakes, the greatest teacher”.

Motivational quotes such as these adorn the walls. Besides the classrooms, where the edtech firm says sessions would be hosted with top educators from various categories, is an in-house library, a merchandise wall and a cafeteria.

Sudarshan Gurjar, who teaches geography and environmental studies to UPSC (Union Public Service Commission) aspirants, is among the Unacademy educators present at the store. “I got the opportunity to interact with a few of my learners,” he says. “I realised that most of them were missing a platform for interpersonal connectivity.” Gurjar, who is based out of Indore, Madhya Pradesh, has been an educator since 2015. 

His current “watch time” on the Unacademy platform is 384 million minutes and he’s followed by some 300,000 students. “The occasional in-person interactions and counsellings with educators will help students stay motivated towards their goals," says Gurjar. "This is a very well-established concept by the brand that will bring the best of both worlds."

SoftBank-backed Unacademy isn’t the only edtech major embracing the hybrid model.

Several others, too, are innovating and strategising to scale up their offline presence while strengthening their online model to tap India’s booming $180 billion education sector. India is positioned to become a $313 billion online education market soon, as the pandemic has precipitated an unprecedented demand for the services of edtech companies, say analysts. And with schools and colleges opening up, learning will now evolve to a more nuanced blended delivery model with a mix of online and offline.

Unacademy’s chief rival Byju’s will, for instance, invest upwards of $200 million to open brick and mortar tuition centres in the next 12-18 months. With positive feedback from the first 80 centres launched as part of the pilot programme since December last year, the company has decided to launch 500 centres in 200 cities this year. 

The tuition centres will combine digital with physical as the classes will have two teachers – one present in the class and the other who will instruct through a screen in the classroom. The tuition classes will be available for students from classes IV to X and carry an average price tag of Rs 3,000-3,500 per month. The company expects to enroll over 1 million students in its tuition centres over the next two years, with a batch size of 25 students in each class.

Mayank Kumar, co-founder and managing director at edtech unicorn upGrad, says with the growing demand for online learning in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, edtech companies are setting up experience zones and franchise centres, especially in these cities to build an offline presence. 

He adds this allows them to have a physical presence locally to connect with prospective learners and provide an offline touchpoint to support and offer guidance to learners on suitable courses. This helps to improve employability along with career assistance and counselling.

While upGrad is aggressively expanding its global presence with newer university partnerships, its offline push is focused on providing touchpoints for parents and students who are looking for higher education and skilling offerings to ensure that the firm is building credibility. “We will not be doing any teaching offline, only counselling and career guidance,” says Kumar. “Online learning has a lot of benefits and it works in sync with offline learning very well. The offline centres or experience zones are a good place for acquiring new learners and building a relationship based on trust. This further brings the cost of acquisition down.”

Unacademy, which last year raised $440 million in a funding round at a valuation of $3.44 billion, too, says its Experience Store was conceptualised to be closer to its learners, making the brand and products more accessible. The stores will cater to the new learners by offering them an experience of Unacademy’s products and on-ground counsel. Existing learners can visit and engage with the on-ground experts to seek guidance and support.

“Our primary goal and intention is to remain online,” said an Unacademy spokesperson. “We feel that online is the way of the future, and that it offers substantially greater benefits in terms of providing remote students with access to top educators. So, with that in mind, the goal is to provide learners with an experience at the store, as well as educate them on how this empowers or facilitates their path.”

The store in Delhi is the first such facility of Unacademy and the company has plans to establish similar touchpoints across the country starting with Kota, Jaipur, and Lucknow in the next phase of expansion. Gaurav Munjal, co-founder and CEO of Unacademy, recently said the company may open up to 200 of such stores, depending on the response.

Vamsi Krishna, CEO and co-founder of Vedantu, says with the coronavirus pandemic receding, edtech firms are expected to come up with new hybrid models including building offline presence to deliver their services. “Maybe in a year’s time, you would see a lot of hybrid models evolving,” he says. “There is a lot of scope for innovation there for various players (including) Vedantu.”

Last year, Vedantu became a unicorn after it raised $100 million in a funding round at $1 billion valuation. Vedantu itself is betting big on innovation in the area of live online learning. It recently launched W.A.V.E 2.0 (Whiteboard Audio Video Environment), which the firm claims is the world’s most interactive and effective classroom.

W.A.V.E measures over 100 parameters in real time using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to drive student engagement, teaching effectiveness, and learning outcomes. 

The technology delivers insights through face recognition, content, whiteboard usage analysis, verbal interaction analysis, doubt analysis, tone, and sentiment analysis. For instance, there are features like “3D++ models” to make complex diagrammatic concepts easy to understand by enabling students to enter the 3D world, zoom in to view minute details, and rotate the 3D model. 

Globally, blended learning is one of the most adopted learning tools as it frees students, academicians, and policymakers from the restrictions of the four walls of a classroom. “In a vast country like India, blended learning will allow access to the best of educational universities to even Tier 2, 3, 4 and 5 centres, including the rural segment and foster the next generation of learners,” says Kumar of upGrad.

Analysts say that annual packages of edtech products – including those around the CBSE curriculum and competitive test-prep -- are an engaging and high-ticket purchase. Offline presence and touchpoint enable students and parents to experience the product before a long-term commitment. 

“A physical presence enables the edtech players to facilitate engagement through educational counsellors for any clarifications or follow-ups,” says Vaibhav Tamrakar, senior vice president-PGA Labs, a business research and market intelligence firm. “This evokes trust and comfort in the brand – especially for first-time buyers who have previously not experienced any online supplementary edtech product.”

Tamrakar adds that the presence of education counsellors in physical stores not only enables better conversion and purchase for new students but also acts as a listening post. This is in case of queries, doubt resolutions, or customer escalations – potentially reducing returns and refunds in the process.