Aakash Educational Services Limited Forms New Subsidiary

GOA:
In order to combine its various digital offerings under one single entity, Aakash Educational Services Limited (AESL), the national leader in the test preparation sector, has set up a new subsidiary by the name of Aakash Edutech Pvt Ltd (AEPL) to help accelerate the growth of AESL’s digital edtech business. Aakash Edutech Pvt. Ltd. will be a 100% wholly owned subsidiary of AESL.

The new subsidiary will comprise Aakash Digital and Meritnation businesses. AEPL will provide a cutting-edge online platform for students to access high-quality live test preparation classes and live tuitions combined with self-study materials enabling better students’ outcomes. While Aakash Digital was started 7 years ago, Meritnation, which started in 2009 was acquired by AESL in January 2020.

Commenting on the formation of Aakash Edutech Pvt. Ltd., Aakash Chaudhry, Director and CEO of Aakash Educational Services Limited (AESL), said, “The creation of Aakash Edutech Pvt. Ltd. will help significantly accelerate the growth of AESL’s digital business. Apart from being one of the largest offline players, AESL is also one of the largest online live tutoring players in India today. The new subsidiary will further strengthen AESL’s competitive positioning not only in digital education but will also further enable its offline student offering across its 200 classroom centres, teaching over 2,50,000 students. The creation of the new subsidiary is a testament to our founder’s motto of ‘Student First’.”

To spearhead AEPL’s digital portfolio, the company has also appointed industry veteran, Narasimha Jayakumar as its CEO. With a vast experience spanning more than 20+ years, Jayakumar was till recently CBO of Shubhloans.com. Prior to Shubhloans.com, Jayakumar was CEO of Nightingales, a leading home healthcare services company. He has also served as CBO of 99acres.com (India’s leading online real estate portal and part of publicly listed InfoEdge India Limited, BSE: Naukri) and COO, E-commerce at HomeShop18, apart from holding international roles at Google, Expedia and Galileo. He holds a B Tech (Computer Engineering) from NIT, Surathkal; PGDM from IIM-Bangalore and an MBA from the London School of Business.

Narasimha Jayakumar, the CEO of AEPL said: “AESL has seen significant growth in the last decade, becoming one of the largest education companies in the country. The formation of Aakash Edutech Pvt. Ltd. will aid our push into newer areas and cutting-edge education technology, enabling us to deliver long-term value to our students, employees, investors and other stakeholders.”

Added Pavan Chauhan, MD of AEPL, “Aakash Edutech Pvt Ltd. will bring together the best and most effective in terms of teaching, curriculum and courses from both Meritnation and Aakash Digital under one umbrella. The academic legacy and pedagogy of both platforms is bound to tremendously benefit students of K12 and those preparing for competitive exams and enable them to obtain quality education online.”

Aakash Digital enables students preparing for JEE, NEET and grades 8-12 school, board and competitive exams get quality online test preparation at the convenience of their home. The ed-tech platform brings the academic legacy and discipline of Aakash Institute to your home through live online classes, recorded video lectures and online practice tests. It empowers students who want quality education but do not have access to the same due to geography or economic reasons.

Meritnation is India’s 1st online learning platform for K12 students with over 2.5 crore students across all major boards. It caters to the learning needs of school students from Class I-XII across leading educational boards and harnesses the power of technology to deliver personalised and engaging content to nurture the student’s learning curve. Meritnation’s Live Class platform connects the best teachers in India with students for live tuition classes, all from the comfort of their home.

In October 2019, AESL had partnered with Blackstone Inc. to create India’s largest digitally enabled, omni-channel test preparation company, by growing its large digital business to supplement its strong physical network of 200 centres.