50,000 cr market cap Vs 50,000 who cleared JEE
Kota still rules engineering entrance
The Physicswallah ipo has drawn attention to the latent potential of the coaching industry. They run all possible coaching classes – iit and ias included. They are even trying their hand at CA coaching.
But this is not the only player in the coaching market. It is niether the first nor the last ipo in the education sector. I decided to pick the mind of the other players to educate myself better. Bansal, Resonance, Akash, FIITjee and Allen are the other players. These are brick and mortar players. Fiitjee and Physicswalla are NCR wonders. The others are from Kota.
I am not saying Physicswallah is overvalued, but it is unlikely to be more profitable than any of the Kota players. Watching an Instagram reel is different from solving a serious maths problem. Companies depend on the halo of rock star professors in person. Akash and Allen are multi city players. They struggle to make money. Allen has a Bottomline of Rs 40 crores on a topline of Rs 3200 crores.
Physicawallah is raising money to go from digital to brick and mortar. But that is the space that Resonance owned. Ram Kumar Verma, the promoter of Resonance took a trip to Delhi to brainstorm the future of coaching. Ram is someone few know except for the 50,000 students who took his classes to clear JEE Advanced. At one time, one in four students who cleared the JEE advanced came from Resonance. Ram doesn’t teach students to clear the exam. He teaches them to learn the subject – without rote learning. His buildings in Kota can seat 25,000 students at one time. These are numbers that Physicswalla will struggle to match. He is liberal with scholarships and will even provide free hostels and mess for the needy.
One person following his footsteps is Khan Sir in Patna. He moves from hall to hall like a rock star wearing a wireless mic with thousands of students in attendance. Khan Sir is already larger than life and can sway election results. Resonance is actively seeking capacity to add in Kota. He is looking at 100,000 daily lecture seats and 50,000 hostel rooms – the bottom 10% are free and the top 1% are priced at Rs 50,000 per month. His big idea is to give his own degree that runs parallel to a graduate degree. And to bring in the rigour of IIT education to ai resilient education from Kota.
His first focus – to retain students after they get into IIT so they can do a second degree that runs alongside their college and requires one year post BTech to sharpen competencies in data science; soft skills and finance. He believes this degree can be more valuable than both – a isb mba or a CA from icai.
His funding needs are rather modest compared to his ambition. But unlike the others, Resonance is 25 years old, has got 50,000 students past the JEE advanced and has physical teaching rooms in Kota that seat 25,000.
The game is just starting.
Physicswalla is just one piece in the ever expanding jigsaw.