PhysicsWallah IPO: Edtech Major's Confidential DRHP Gets SEBI Go Ahead
PhysicsWallah is now expected to refile updated offer documents publicly, as per regulations set by the Securities and Exchange Board of India.
Delhi-based edtech major PhysicsWallah has received the market regulator's approval for its confidentially filed draft papers, a regulatory notification on Thursday showed.
The company is now expected to refile updated offer documents publicly, as per regulations set by the Securities and Exchange Board of India.
The regulatory update showed that SEBI has issued observations to the edtech company on July 18. Issuance of observation means that the company has received a go ahead for its proposed IPO.
PhysicsWallah had filed for an initial public offering in March, with the offer size coming up to over Rs 4,500 crore, people familiar with the matter told NDTV Profit.
The offer is likely to include a primary issuance of shares and a large stake sale by existing investors, another person said on the condition of anonymity. The offer is expected to be at a higher valuation than the Rs 23,400-crore valuation the company had in its previous funding round, where it managed to raise about Rs 1,750 crore.
The last funding round, which marked a 2.5 times jump over PhysicsWallah's previous valuation of $1.1 billion, was led by Hornbill Capital, with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners alongside existing investors GSV and WestBridge.
JPMorgan India Pvt., Axis Capital Ltd. and Kotak Mahindra Capital Co. are the lead bankers to the deal.
PhysicsWallah's confidential filing was among the long list of confidential filings which included the likes of Inox Clean Energy, Shadowfax Technologies, stockbroking firm Groww, commerce enablement platform Shiprocket, and upper layer non-banking financial company Tata Capital.
PhysicsWallah's Financials
Co-founded by Alakh Pandey and Prateek Maheshwari, PhysicsWallah is one of India's rare edtech unicorns with a presence across 135 cities, including Kota, Patna and New Delhi. Apart from online lectures, it claims to have a presence spanning offline and hybrid modes, reaching 98% of the country's pin codes.
"PW has more than 10 million paid students on the PW App. PW also provides quality education to more than 36 million students through its 80 YouTube channels in eight vernacular languages," the website reads.
The company's consolidated revenue from operations rose 2.6 times to Rs 1,940 crore on a year-on-year basis for the 2024 fiscal, but its losses widened nearly 13 times to Rs 1,041 crore. This was mainly on the back of higher employee benefit expenses, which jumped 2.8 times on-year to Rs 1,159 crore.
Meanwhile, the platform's other expenses, too, jumped over five times to Rs 1,660 crore in the same period. PhysicsWallah's Ebitda loss also widened to Rs 975 crore from the previous year's Rs 22 crore.
