Indian EdTech Vedantu recently paid $40 million for a controlling share in the education company Deeksha, the latest effort by regional online learning platforms to capitalize on prospects in the physical industry.
Vedantu, a company with headquarters in Bengaluru that last year attained unicorn status, said that as part of their strategic relationship to develop a “scalable hybrid model,” they would incorporate their technology into Deeksha’s offline facilities. Deeksha, a 22-year-old organization, has 39 physical locations across three Indian states and trains 11th and 12th graders to succeed in competitive examinations.
Earlier this year, Vedantu started experimenting with the offline experience and claimed in Deeksha that it had discovered the ideal partner to make further inroads in the smaller Indian cities and towns. Vamsi Krishna, co-founder and chief executive of Vedantu, stated in an interview with TechCrunch that he has been following Deeksha for 10 years and that when they started looking for synergies, it became evident that the two will greatly benefit from the collaboration.
According to a person familiar with the situation, Deeksha’s topline revenue at the moment is between $10 million and $12 million, and the company is running at a 21% EBIDTA margin. Krishna stayed silent on Deeksha’s financial situation.
Krishna, who is also a teacher, has approached possibilities for acquisition in a somewhat different way. In the past two years, there have been more than a dozen consolidations of the Indian edtech business, but Vedantu has generally refrained from becoming involved. We’re still willing to buy more companies, but I don’t have a target in mind. Vedantu doesn’t have an acquisition strategy, he added.
