Education
e-learning platform
Season 1 Episode 17
| Brand | AAS Vidyalaya |
| Company Name | Avileen Academic Services Private Limited |
| Founders | Vikas Kakwani, Leena Kakwani |
| Original Ask | ₹1.5 Crore for 3% equity at the valuation of ₹50 Crores. |
| Deal | ₹1.5 Crore for 15% equity at the valuation of ₹10Crores |
About the Product:
AAS Vidyalaya has brought the school to your pocket. Our nation has 80,000 primary schools. Only 4 lakh middle schools and 1.5 lakh secondary schools exist. Just 50% of secondary school students attend on average. The 10th standard is only passed by 30 out of 100 students. Is there a fix for this? Can’t we bring the school to them utilizing technology if they can’t come to class? These were their thoughts. AAS Vidyalaya – Anytime, Anywhere School was created as a result of this. This is very similar to a real school. The app contains all of the classes for every subject according to the syllabus. There are tests, report cards, and parent-teacher meetings exactly like in actual schools. Also, they follow NCERT rules so if they want 200 classes, 200 classes are held in the app too.
But, the students Vikas and Leena are trying to contact do not possess their gadgets, laptops, or cell phones. When we didn’t have phones, we would go to STD PCOs, and when we didn’t have access to the internet, we would go to cybercafés. The AAS Vidyalaya Education Café was created in response to similar ideas. Tabs are available in the education café, where only AAS Vidyalaya’s sessions are held. Every time they have some free time, residents of the community visit this café. Every home is served by AAS Vidyalaya because we never know which of those children will become our country’s next Abdul Kalam or Kalpana Chawla.
Founders & their story:
- Vikas Kakwani
- Leena Kakwani
Vikas and Leena are from Mumbai. Vikas was born and raised in the historic city of Meerut. His parents have no formal education. His father ran a little business. His father felt bad after seeing Vikas playing in the streets and wanted to get him into a decent school. He afterward enrolled and spent 13 years studying at a convent school. His good fortune was in being able to choose the appropriate road at the appropriate moment. At IIT Roorkee, Vikas studied engineering. He visited IIM Lucknow to be ready for the CAT. He worked as a company leader in sales and marketing for 20 years in the corporate sector. Leena was born and brought up in a small town called Kanpur. She has studied child psychology. Vikas and Leena have one son. So she had to put everything that she learned to bring up their child.
Parents don’t send girls to schools as they don’t have schools nearby. What will you do by studying? Learn the household work as this is what you have to do in the future. And for the boys, fathers tell them to join in their paddy field so that they can learn the work as that’s what they’ll be doing. But the kids are very interested in studying. To help such children, Vikas and Leena have come up with AAS Vidyalaya to provide education in their own homes. It is the first online school platform in India.
If we divide India into four parts of a pyramid, L1, L2, L3, and L4, L1 represents rich people which is the top 5%. All the EdTech was focused on rich people. The government focuses on the L4 which is the bottom 50% because the government wants to make everyone literate, for which primary education is good enough. The 45% population of India in the middle, earns around ₹30,000 per month. But either there are no schools near them or the teachers are not available. So, Vikas and Leena decided that they won’t provide tuition because they have no access to schools. They started with CBSE-NCERT English medium curriculum. There was a demand in Maharashtra. In January 2021, AAS Vidyalaya launched the Marathi medium Maharashtra Board. And they focus only on grades six to ten.
About the company:
The company in the first vertical started with B to C, i.e. Business to Consumer. Then they realized that to enter B to C, they need a lot of money and reach. In the second vertical, they approached the corporates who have buildings in small village areas. Right now they have contracts with five companies. So, the corporate pays them. Café was set up at their plant location. Selling tabs is not their work. Tabs are provided by third-party companies. They do all the cost-to-cost setup of these cafes.
Revenue:
The business was founded in 2017. It has therefore been four years. The P.F. have all left. Along with their friends, Vikas and Leena invested about 1.5 crore rupees and obtained 50 lacks through NIDHI as seed money. NIDHI owns 7% of the equity, Vikas and the other directors hold about 70% of the equity, and their friends own the remaining 23%. In the last year, the revenue was ₹70 Lakhs. This year it is ₹1.5 Crore and is aiming for ₹5 Crores.
Founders’ Ask:
₹1.5 Crores for 3% Equity at the ₹50 Crores valuation.
Offers:
- Peyush, Ashneer & Namita’s offer: ₹1.5 Crore for 15% equity
Founders’ Counter Offer:
- ₹1.5 Crore for 7.5% equity.
- ₹1.5 Crore for 10% equity.
Final Deal:
₹1.5 Crore for 15% equity at the valuation of ₹10 Crores by Peyush, Ashneer & Namita.