Founded by Sumeet Verma and Amit Shrivastava, KopyKitab is a digital library, and has the biggest collection of e-books and branded digital content for larger education, K12, and specialist and competitive exams. “We have a strong foundation of leading publishers and tutorials as content partners, and aim to bridge the gap between content providers and students,” Verma, the CEO & co-founder, shares in an interview with FE’s Vikram Chaudhary. Excerpts:
The pandemic has brought to the fore the digital divide when it comes to educating kids…
During our academic years, top quality educational experiences weren’t out there to all and business was but to go by way of a technological disruption. Students from modest towns had restricted access as compared to these in tier-1 cities and metros. The struggle to procure larger education textbooks, tutorials and notes for students living in smaller sized towns was genuine, and two decades later not substantially has changed. We understood the discomfort from our personal encounter as me and the co-founder (Amit Shrivastava) grew up in modest towns and have the identical alma mater, Sainik School, Rewa.
There are 40 million students in colleges who invest $40 billion yearly on their education content and tutorials. We saw it as a marketplace chance and came up with KopyKitab to aid students to handle their complete studying lifecycle. The thought was to democratise studying.
KopyKitab today covers 8% of the addressable marketplace, with a user base of 7 million (all organic) and an 80% returning user base. We essentially assistance a student’s complete studying lifecycle, from college to college to competitive exams, by delivering live tutorials by faculty from major institutions.
How substantially site visitors do you see from smaller sized cities?
Tier-2 and tier-3 cities and languages are opening up more for us. Currently, we are obtaining 67% site visitors from these cities and are addressing in seven languages. We are hunting to engage 10 million customers in the next one year.
We are also investing in technologies (AI/ML) for greater relevancy, group, branding and overseas collaborations as well (obtaining 7% organic site visitors from overseas). New services introduced are currently doubling on a month-on-month basis.
What is your next milestone as far as revenues are concerned?
We are aiming at $one hundred million income as the very first milestone (1 million paid customers spending $one hundred on our platform).
Isn’t the edtech space in India as well cluttered, currently?
Higher education has been an underserved marketplace in India, even as there are Unicorns such as Chegg, Course Hero and Huike in related space globally. After K12, now it is about larger education exactly where it is all about severe income (annual invest of about $40 billion). There is enormous scope for development, so there are motives to seriously look at this sector.
At the identical time, every single start off-up has its lifecycle, and that is how you develop, from modest to massive to larger. The method to comply with is to concentrate on execution, supplying what your consumer desires, and hold them delighted all the time.
But more than the next 2-3 years do you foresee consolidation taking place in the Indian edtech space?
I can not say consolidation, but more models, solving genuine issues, greater offerings and geographical expansion would be the bigger possibilities for Indian edtech corporations. It’s just obtaining began.
According to a report by Anand Rathi Advisors Limited (ARAL), India’s edtech space saw investment of $2.1 billion in calendar year 2020 (as compared to $1.7 billion in the complete preceding decade). What sort of funds did KopyKitab raise?
We raised fresh round of funding from a clutch of nicely-recognized institutional and angel investors like Pactolus (Singapore), Stanford Angels (led by Paula Mariwala), and ace investors like Praveen Gandhi, Jeenendra Bhandari, Mohit Dubey and Manoj Mehta.
How will larger education alter in the post-pandemic era?
There is larger acceptability of digital studying and content. Small town students do not necessarily have to move to massive cities for studying wants, as they have equally superior or greater alternatives on the internet and at very affordable costs. Education would get more informal and studying-based. Similarly, there now are virtual internships and apprenticeships alternatives. Higher education edtech space is going to get larger.