PhysicsWallah, Utkarsh Classes form JV; firms to jointly foray into new test-prep categories

Utkarsh Classes mainly provides offline and online learning courses for government exams, and has ventured into various exams categories like defence, NEET-JEE, CLAT, CUET, online tuitions for students of classes 6 to 12.

The companies said in a statement that under the partnership, Utkarsh Classes will continue to lead expansion of the government test preparation category and launch offline centres in 32 cities where PhysicsWallah has already established its offline centres under the Vidyapeeth brand, which provide JEE and NEET preparation offerings.

Utkarsh Classes will also launch state government job-focused offline and online courses in these cities.

“PhysicsWallah will expand its outreach by opening more Vidyapeeths, currently present in 32 cities, and will continue scaling up in the all-India competitive exam categories. Moreover, PhysicsWallah and Utkarsh Classes will together launch a new category – ‘Utkarsh Private Jobs’ – which will help in training students to prepare for their placements in the private sector,” according to the statement.

The company runs multiple offline coaching centres in Rajasthan’s Jodhpur, and Jaipur, and has recently launched offline centres in Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh.

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Utkarsh Classes has over 11 million subscribers on its main channel on YouTube, while PhysicsWallah has around 9.7 million subscribers on its main channel.This joint venture will also facilitate the provision of study material from PhysicsWallah to Utkarsh Classes, and plans to introduce co-branded education products.

Both companies will also jointly provide academic training and course offerings in various categories “to improve the learning outcome of students.”

“Both PW and Utkarsh Classes are an emotion for students. The founding teams have a solid vision of providing result-oriented quality education to every student in the country at an affordable fee,” said PhysicsWallah founder and chief executive Alakh Pandey.

PhysicsWallah raised $100 million in June last year in its maiden funding round led by Westbridge Capital and GSV Ventures.

ET reported last week that the company was planning to increase its allocation for mergers and acquisitions (M&As) to $100 million from the current $50 million. The profit-making company is looking to acquire startups operating in various test-prep segments, in addition to augmenting its geographical presence.

In the same month it raised the funds, Noida-based PhysicsWallah launched its first offline centre in Kota, Rajasthan.

In a recent interaction with ET, Prateek Maheshwari, co-founder of PhysicsWallah, said: “Even if we decide to not go offline, students are going offline. If we don’t go to Kota, still 3-4 lakh students will go. As a solution provider, we have to make the medium more outcome oriented. We are innovating a lot in the offline segment, how can we introduce technology in that, etc.”

By next year, PhysicsWallah plans to have 63 offline centres servicing close to 160,000 students.