Aakash transforming into hybrid edtech company

After getting acquired by Byju’s for $1 billion earlier this year, Aakash Educational Services (AESL) is transforming into a hybrid edtech firm and is expanding rapidly across the country.

AESL will launch 106 new centres across the country in the next five months. These will be a mix of extension and standalone centres.

In 1988, J C Chaudhry founded AESL as a tiny private coaching institute out of a room in West Delhi. From 12 students in 1988, Aakash has grown to 215 centres, with a student count of more than 250,000. The aim now is to have about 500,000 students by the end of this year.

“Hybrid learning is the future, and test prep is a big segment within the entire education space in India. The answer, going forward, is going to be a combination of both physical and digital classroom,” said Abhishek Maheshwari, chief executive officer (CEO) of AESL. “We had all the basics in place and it was about accelerating that journey. Postbyju’s coming in, it is further accelerating that.”

AESL provides test preparatory services to students preparing for medical and engineering entrance exams, school and board exams, Olympiads, and other foundation-level exams. The institute clocks an annual turnover of about ~1,200 crore, according to the sources.

With a workforce of over 5,000, AESL is looking at bringing in more than 2,000 people this year. This is part of its offline or physical centre expansion strategy as well as to service the growth it is experiencing in the existing centres. It is hiring talent across the spectrum, including for academics, technology, sales, marketing, operations and for other enabling functions.

“We are transforming ourselves as an organisation on three dimensions, including getting closer to the customers, leveraging technology and physical centres, and hiring talent. Our expansion plan is largely based on that,” said Maheshwari.