PhysicsWallah, once a small YouTube channel, is now poised to become one of the biggest edtech firms to go public in India, and first in case of pureplay edtech firms as the company has filed its confidential draft red-herring prospectus (DRHP) with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).
The company has opted for the confidential route to the initial public offering (IPO) that will keep its draft registration statements and details private for now before the RHP is published. Only few other companies such as Swiggy and Vishal Mega Mart had opted for the confidential IPO route since SEBI introduced the mechanism.
According to the reports, PhysicsWallah is aiming to raise Rs 4,600 crore through the IPO that will likely include both; a fresh issuance of equity shares as well as an offer for sale (OFS). The company had appointed Kotak Mahindra Capital, Axis Bank, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs as investment bankers for its IPO proceedings last year.
Alakh Pandey, a teacher by profession, had started PhysicsWallah as a YouTube channel to offer free educational content to the students preparing for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE)- the country’s biggest engineering entrance test. Within 3 years, the channel rose to 2 million subscribers as Pandey’s unique teaching style gained popularity among the students. In 2020, Alakh Pandey along with co-founder Prateek Maheshwari launched the PhysicsWallah mobile app and website, expanding its offerings.
PhysicsWallah raised its first funding of $102 million in June 2022 which also marked the company’s valuation past $1 billion and establishing its unicorn status. The company also launched its first offline coaching centre called Vidyapeeth in Kota, Rajasthan, in 2022. Company’s last funding round of $210 million at a valuation of $2.8 billion in September 2024 from GSV ventures, WestBridge Capital, Lightspeed venture partners, Hornbill capital and Setu Aif trust.
Nine years after its inception and $312 million in funding later, as of 2025, the company has over 150 Vidyapeeth and Pathshala centres across 20 states in the country. Moreover the YouTube channels under PW umbrella have over 46 million subscribers and its mobile app has over 10 million downloads. The company states to have around 55 lakh paid students with more than 2 lakh students in offline centres.
Reportedly, PW’s $530 million IPO will push its valuation near $5-billion. The latest evaluation ranks PhysicsWallah ahead of other edtech firms operating in the same segment such as Unacademy, UpGrad and Simplilearn etc. After the disastrous case of BYJU’s, only Vedantu and UpGrad have chances of IPO in near future.
Headquartered in Noida, the company has more than 14 thousand employees.
The company had reported a revenue of Rs 1,940 crore in FY24, a 161% growth over revenue of Rs 744 crore in FY23. The company’s losses stood at Rs 84 crore in FY23 and Rs 1,130 crore in FY24. The company’s revenue comes from the sale of educational services, coaching classes, hostel services and sale of products such as study material, tablets and merchandise etc.