Physics Wallah's journey from YouTube to unicorn: IPO, expansion, and what's next

The Hindu

16 hours ago

Physics Wallah's report card shows a swift rise since 2016, successful investment rounds, national footprint and the down-to-earth attitude of founders. But the answer awaited is the market reaction to its upcoming Initial Public Offering.
First, let's look at the edtech company's core: academic coaching. The exam prep and subjects covered are hardly limited by the name, Physics Wallah.
From Class 7 to 12, from UPSC exams to NEET, IIT-JEE to IIM, CA to NDA, and Upskilling to Mentoring, the Institute set up by a physics enthusiast is now an all-rounder that helps students prepare for more than 35 exam categories. Over 36 million students log on to its channels and 15 million use the PW App for competitive exams preparation.
As a company, Physics Wallah (PW) has set new financial benchmarks and emerged as a unicorn, meaning its value has crossed $1 billion. Currently, PW has filed draft papers for an initial public offering of around $500 million, as per media reports.
Impact of fundraising
The consistent growth and funding rounds have had an impact on ground. Scaling from a model of online education, Physics Wallah now operates more than 130 offline centers under four categories: 'Vidyapeeth,' which is completely offline, 'Pathshala,' hybrid learning centre, 'PW Tuition' for offline tuition and the 'Vidyapeeth Residential Program.'
The offline Vidyapeeth model is restricted to Foundation programs for Class 8 to 10 students, IIT-JEE for Class 11 and 12, and NEET coaching for Class 11 and 12 students. 'Dropper' batches are designed for students keen on a second attempt at NEET or JNV Olympiad.
SIP, School Integrated Learning Center by Physics Wallah, is a hub within a school's campus and is blended with online interactive classes. Going a step further, PW has set up its school brand 'Gurukulam School,' at Varanasi, Indore and Gurugram under the CBSE curriculum. Admission is open to students from the age of three years, though the age category may vary depending on the location.
Not everything in academics is about learning, not every student can excel in exams, and there are obstacles in the prep process for every aspirant. 'PW Prerna,' staffed by counselors, is a free teleconsultation platform that students can dial into to overcome exam stress, anxiety and nervousness. In Kota and Patna, they can walk in for an in-person consultation.
With all the positives outlined herein, is Physics Wallah an almost perfect example of an educator-turned-entrepreneur success story? Time to find out more.
Riding the wave
It all started with a man named Alakh Pandey. Hailing from Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, Alakh Sir, as he would be affectionately called later by millions of students, began teaching while he was in school. The story goes that around 2016 he started a YouTube channel with an investment of ₹30,000. By 2019, the subscriber base had increased to 2 million and scaled to 6.8 million in 2022.
COVID came into our lives, and into Alakh Sir's life came a spark… in the name of Prateek Maheswari, a Mechanical Engineering graduate from IIT-BHU, who helped build the PW App, which students could download during the pandemic and the lean times thereafter. PW was charging one-tenth of the price of competitors, and the quality was as good as anyone else's, reports say. His teachers were rated highly; hence poached periodically.
Alakh Sir put an end to this by raising funds from investors and strengthening the business with the help of Maheswari, who had become a co-founder. From 2022 onwards, Physics Wallah found its place in India's edtech map as a brand that delivered quality coaching at an affordable price, and at nil or subsidized cost to several segments.
The man who started the company from humble beginnings did not forget his roots. In June 2025, PW signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the CRPF Family Welfare Association (CWA) to provide educational support to the families of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel.
The initiative outlines multiple tiers of scholarships, including full scholarships for the families of CRPF martyrs and personnel who passed away during service. Additionally, families of serving and retired CRPF members are eligible for a 35% scholarship on offline coaching and a 25% scholarship for online courses.
According to CSR Mandate magazine, for the 2023-24 academic session, PW granted a full fee waiver to 51,000 students at a total cost of ₹17 crore, to those from economically weaker sections of society. Further, as it has been from day one, students have free access to the content on PW's YouTube channel.
Co-founder Maheswari said in a media interview last year that Physics Wallah hosts 81 YouTube channels with the total number of subscribers exceeding 36 million and the count of daily active users (DAU) exceeding 2.1 million.
Alakh Sir's and his co-founder's natural ability to address the TG of students who may not be comfortable in English is evident from the repertoire of over 12 vernacular channels on YouTube, such as Teluguwallah, PW Gujarati and PW Bangla, which cater to K-12 and IIT-JEE/NEET preparations.
Empathizing with the challenges faced by first-generation, first-time entrepreneurs, Alakh Sir and his co-founder launched in 2024 the PW School of Startups (SOS) with an initial corpus of ₹100 crore. The entity will nurture at least 100 startups over the next five years.
Too much growth?
If we look back in time, how have the last three years been in terms of financial performance? In edtech, the fashion or trend for a company on a growth curve is the acquisition of allied enterprises, and while it seems the right step, it is also a reason the acquirer starts to falter.
Consider this: With a strategic intent of increasing market share and widening its product suite, Physics Wallah made a series of investments and acquisitions in 2022 and 2023, according to data published on industry portals. These include:
Xylem Learning, a hybrid learning platform in South India; Knowledge Planet, a UAE-based K-12 online and offline learning startup; iNeuron, a platform focused on upskilling; Altis Vortex, a publisher and supplier of NCERT-based books for classes 11 and 12, along with NEET, and CUET-UG exam preparations; PrepOnline, an online learning platform for NEET, board exams, and state-level government exams preparation; FreeCo, a doubt-solving and resource management company in the edtech space.
For FY 24, as per regulatory filings, Physics Wallah reported an operating revenue increase of 161% from ₹744 crore in FY 23 to ₹1,940 crore in FY 24. However, for the year under review, the company's losses jumped from ₹84 crore to ₹1,130 crore.
A company spokesperson, while commenting on the financials of that period, has said that the losses were higher due to non-cash expenses such as Compulsorily Convertible Preference Shares (CCPS) to the extent of 756 crores.
Despite the loss figure, the confidence of equity investors is evident from the fund raise in September 2024. Investment platform Zerodha says Physics Wallah raised $210 million in a funding round led by Hornbill Capital, boosting its valuation to $2.8 billion - a 2.5x increase from the previous round. Other backers from the investment world include Westbridge Capital, GSV Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
The IPO date is yet to be announced, but indications are it will be sooner than later. Meanwhile, questions being asked by PW watchers and analysts are:
Will retail and bulk investors give the public offering a thumbs up? Will the market condone last year's losses and wait for FY 25 results, and for what is projected by its founders as its highest ever EBITDA year? Will doomsayers be proved right, specifically those who contend Physics Wallah has not learnt a lesson from the errors of erstwhile peers, which went on an acquisition spree and expansion into offline centers?
Doubt-solving is integral to a teacher's DNA. Likely that Alakh Sir will clarify… and list with a premium on the issue price.
(The writer is a former journalist and advertising professional now serving as a communications advisor. Views expressed are his own).