Edtech startups mopped up over $8 billion in funding across 2021 and 2022, but their financial performances (except PhysicsWallah) have failed to follow through on these impressive funding rounds. Case in point is 11-year-old edtech company Vedantu which is yet to touch Rs 200 crore revenue mark.
But, on the upside, the Bengaluru-based unicorn has managed to control its losses during the last fiscal year (FY22).
Vedantu primarily derives its revenue from online tutoring of various courses to students across the country. This collection surged 79.8% to Rs 169 crore during FY22 from Rs 94 crore in FY21, according to its consolidated financial statement with the RoC.
The company raised over $100 million during FY22, and as a result, its finance income stood at Rs 25.7 crore during that period.
On the expense side, employee benefits turned out to be the largest cost center for the company, forming 54.9% of the overall spending. This expense surged 20.1% to Rs 489 crore in FY22.
Vedantu’s expenditure on advertising and promotion marginally grew to Rs 182 crore during FY22. Information technology costs and seminar conference expenses surged 31.6% and 61.1% respectively to Rs 25 crore and Rs 29 crore.
Unlike its revenue, the company’s overall expenditure grew a (relatively) meager 19.1% to Rs 891 crore in FY22 from Rs 748 crore in FY21. The company has clearly kept a tight control on expenses which resulted in a mere 13% increase in its losses to Rs 696 crore in FY22.
Its ROCE and EBITDA margin stood at -116.93% and -350.97% in FY22. On a unit level, Vedantu spent Rs 5.27 to earn a single unit of operating revenue during the last fiscal year.
Like other edtech companies, Vedantu has been going through a challenging time. The company fired over 1,100 employees in three phases in 2022. In the beginning of FY23, the Vamsi Krishna-led firm forayed into offline tuition centers. Unacademy, Byju’s, and PhysicsWallah have already opened their offline tuition classes across the country.
While PhysicsWallah emerged as the only profitable company among unicorns, Unacademy’s operating revenue and losses spiked by more than 80% to Rs 719 crore in FY22. Byju’s, which reported Rs 4,564 crore loss in FY21, is yet to file its FY22 numbers. Another edtech unicorn upGrad also saw a surge in losses to Rs 627 crore in the last fiscal year.
The return to ‘normalcy’ post pandemic has been anything but normal for most edtechs seeing how they have struggled post that. It’s ironic that most have been forced to go back, or seek offline presence when their whole premise and investor pitch was the end of offline learning. Numbers, be it on staff or advertising, remain off the charts for Vedantu, and there is nothing to indicate it has found a way yet, other than seek to control the cash hemorrhage.
