“Currently, we have more than 60 centres. By next year we are targeting 100 centres. This year we catered to 1.4 lakh students, which should go up to 2.4 lakh,” Maheshwari said. It set up 49 offline centres in 2023.
Physics Wallah plans to enter Tamil Nadu through its partnership with Xylem Learning in 2024.
Talking about hiring plans, Maheshwari said, “This year, we visited a couple of IITs and tier-2 and 3 colleges as well. We hire a couple of freshers every year for tech. We hire business analysts, operation managers, teachers, and counsellors. We run a faculty training program, and every year we put freshers through training to create a pipeline,” he said.
While a significant majority of its clientele is online learners—95% by Maheshwari’s estimates—the offline expansion seems driven by strategic considerations.
“We are a tech-first, online-first company. We forayed into offline mode for those aspirants who couldn’t maintain consistency or self-discipline online. A good amount of our target audience can afford courses worth Rs 60,000-80,000,” Maheshwari said.
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The edtech unicorn is building Alakh AI, an ambitious generative artificial intelligence (AI) study companion that is language-agnostic. Named after its other cofounder, Alakh Pandey, the AI will aim to provide both academic and non-academic support.Maheshwari said, “We plan to launch Alakh AI in February.”
“Many students continue to connect from remote areas of the country and don’t have access to a neat and clear internet. We are designing classes so that these can be delivered in ultra-low latency and bandwidth to students from tier-5 cities of India,” he added.
The company has already announced plans to hire 1,100 people in six months where 60% will be teaching staff and the rest non-teaching.
ET reported that in November, the company laid off 120 staffers, amounting to less than 1% of its workforce, over performance concerns.