Bangalore-based online tutoring firm TutorVista plans to double its student and teacher base by January 2010. The company has 1,500 teachers in 120 cities and a student base of almost 20,000, of which around 90 per cent are in the US. It also plans to expand its footprint in the UK and Australia in the next 12 months, besides launching specific products for these markets. The company already has a presence in Nepal.
“Our focus is on the US, but we will double our student base by tapping new markets,” said K Ganesh, CEO and founder, TutorVista.
TutorVista is also eyeing school acquisitions on the same line as the Tandem Group of Institutes, which has 39 centres spread across Kerala and Tamil Nadu and one in Dubai. The company is looking at regionally strong players in the country, besides school acquisitions.
Recently, global publishing firm Pearson acquired a 17.2 per cent stake in TutorVista, making it the largest shareholder in the Indian online tutoring services firm. TutorVista had earlier raised venture capital from Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Ventures, Silicon Valley Bank and subsequently roped in Manipal Education as an investor.
“Pearson is a strategic investor and has given us access to their US student base and we will leverage our relationship with them to get access to their student base and content. We are not looking at further investors,” added Ganesh.
TutorVista also has a partnership with MacMillan in India to take education solutions to schools.
