Aakash Launches Aakash Digital: Rs 250-500 Cr Investment in Edtech

New Delhi, Mar 19 (PTI) Test preparatory firm Aakash Educational Services has now made a full-fledged foray into online classes with an outlay of Rs 250 crore for the development of its digital platform "Aakash Digital", a senior official of the company said on Wednesday.

In January, Aakash unveiled Aakash Invictus which was limited to IIT-JEE courses but Aakash Digital will have all courses that the company provides in offline centres.

While announcing the launch of Aakash Digital, Aakash Educational Services Limited, Managing Director and CEO, Deepak Mehrotra said that the company has leveraged its experience of 36 years for the development of Aakash Digital.

"We have set aside an investment of Rs 250-500 crore largely in tech and AI. A good chunk of that investment has been already made. If required, we will scale up our investments. We are dedicating a team of 150 teachers to start with. When we reach the scale that we are aspiring to, we will have a minimum of 500 teachers to support digital and phygital learning," Mehrotra said.

He said that digital accounts for less than 10 per cent of AESL overall revenue but at scale in the next 2-3 years the revenue from digital space is expected to reach 25-30 per cent of the company's total revenue.

"Overall Aakash revenue would have also scaled up at that time," Mehrotra said.

He said that Aakash Digital has been designed to cater to the requirements of small and remote towns.

"Our platform has been developed in a manner to work on 2G data as well," Mehrotra said.

A beta version of Aakash Digital 2.0 was launched a year ago.

Mehrotra said that digital platforms recorded more attendance than physical classrooms during the beta test phase.

"Parents, especially in small towns, will save a lot in expenses around food, lodging etc when they opt for physical centres. The fee for deserving students, after accounting for our scholarships and other programs, will be 10 to 20 per cent less than that of physical classroom courses," he said.