Physics Wallah's revenue surges 3.3X YoY

The edtech firm Physics Wallah (PW) had a significant increase in income in FY23, hitting Rs 771.76 crore — a 3.3X YoY increase. The adjusted EBITDA for FY23 was Rs 127 crore, while expenses increased to Rs 777 crore.

In FY22, the firm recorded an operating revenue of Rs 232.47 Cr and in FY21 it was Rs 24.6 Cr.

The edtech unicorn released select numbers ahead of filing audited financial statements with the Registrar of Companies (RoC). While it clocked a net profit of Rs 97.8 Cr in FY22, it didn’t disclose its bottom line number for FY23.

As per the edtech startup, in FY23, its adjusted EBITDA (before ESOP costs, LER and a one-time inventory provisioning) stood at INR 127 Cr which declined from Rs 134 Cr in FY22.    

The startup was founded in 2020 by Alakh Pandey and Prateek Maheshwari. It started as a YouTube channel but has since expanded to a full-fledged test prep platform for competitive exams. At the outset, it catered to the IIT/JEE and NEET aspirants but has lately forayed into various segments such as post-graduate programmes, UPSC prep, and upskilling courses.

In the beginning of this year, the firm said that it will pour in Rs 100 Cr in scaling up its UPSC vertical and would pump an additional Rs 120 Cr to shore up its skill development vertical.

PW last raised $100 Mn as part of a funding round from Westbridge and GSV Ventures in 2022 at a post-money valuation of $1.1 Bn, turning into a unicorn. The financial results come at a time when the edtech juggernaut is reportedly in talks to raise $250 Mn at a valuation of $3.3 Bn.

It operates 58 Vidyapeeth (offline) and Pathshala (hybrid) centres. By 2024, PW hopes to have 120 centres and offer test preparation for competitive exams. PW claimed it enrolled 1.4 Lakh students for such offline and hybrid courses in the academic year 2023-24.

Overall, PW said that it ‘taught’ 23.5 Lakh students across all exam categories (barring acquisitions) in FY23, up from 9 Lakhs in the previous fiscal.

“Our growth was significant both in the online and offline space. Our online categories grew to 2.5X in terms of students headcount from 9 Lakh in FY22 to 23.5 Lakh in FY23 while our offline student headcount grew to 5.5X touching 60,000 enrolments in FY23… We are in no hurry to compromise growth for achieving a steady-state margin profile,” said cofounder Maheshwari.