This edtech startup focuses on the learner-centered paradigm of education

With over 4,000 edtech startups in the country, the sector is expected to reach $4 billion by 2025 at a CAGR of 40 percent, making it one of the fastest-growing industries in the country.

Now, with so many EdTechs in the market, how does one ensure their company cuts the noise? Ujjwal Singh, President and CEO, Infinity Learn, that caters to the K-12 learning segment in India, believes that keeping it learner-focused is what makes the cut.

Backed by the Sri Chaitanya education group, Infinity Learn is designed as a one-stop solution for in-school and after-school learning where the faculty – aided with more than 2 million pieces of learning content - including adaptive practice questions, solutions, flashcards, and videos – comes together to ensure holistic development of students.

The company started by providing solutions for the test prep with STEM classes 9-12 in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education for competitive exams like NEET and JEE-Mains. Within 18 months, it has expanded to now providing educational learning in subjects like coding and robotics from classes 1-8 as well.

In an exclusive interaction with YourStory, Ujjwal talks about how they survived the funding winter, the importance of financial sustainability for startups, and the trends he foresees for the industry.

Edited excerpts from the interview:

YourStory (YS): Take us through the journey of Infinity Learn. What kind of challenges did you face during the inception?

Ujjwal Singh (US): While Infinity Learn officially started in June 2021, we were already in stealth mode from February of that year, when the founding team was in deep deliberation on how the startup can do things differently. We started providing our services from July 2021 onwards. The company caters to various educational needs with Infinity Learn- the B2C app for grades 6-12, Infinity Schools- Hyflex Classrooms for grades 6-12, and Infinity Futurz, the co-curricular vertical for grades 1-8.

One of the first challenges was to take forward the legacy of Sri Chaitanya Group and translate that same success onto the digital platform.

The next challenge was to figure out how we can stand apart from other players in the market. This led us to come up with a goal-based learning approach, where our students' progress can be easily broken down into goals and then meticulously tracked to ensure learner-based outcomes.

The final challenge was to implement an ‘assessment for learning’ model, under which sharp segmented advice is given to the learner rather than generic advice. This way, the student progresses through methodically targeting and overcoming each weak area in the subject.

YS: You say you are a ‘company obsessed with learner outcomes and focus on measuring whether the student has gotten the skills. How do you make this happen?

US: The motto of Infinity Learn is ‘Baccha seekha ki nahi?’ (Did the child learn or not?). We wish to own the responsibility of learning and not teaching. For this, we follow a two-pronged approach – one which focuses on the learner and the other on the teacher.

When it comes to the learner, we believe that education extends way beyond the classroom. So, we try to provide our services in a way that is aligned with the school, such that whenever the child is learning something, he is able to use that either within school or outside school.

To enable this, we track the child very closely on a progress chart which we call ‘goals’ and try to see that he is able to move the needle of learning every time he uses the app.

When it comes to the teacher, we make sure that our teachers understand that the ownership of learning lies on them and not the student. Both students and teachers receive feedback on their performance. Teachers are provided with very granular data from the assessments conducted, which helps them navigate their teaching pattern to focus on the weaker areas of the learner.

Currently, we have three different types of learners on the platform - the Guided Learners who take all our services, the Self Learners who mostly study by themselves and come to us whenever they need help, and the learners who just take our tests and assessments for NEET and JEE-Mains.

YS: Your mission is to foster 3 million learning journeys on the platform by 2025. Are you well on track to achieving the number?

US: We stand at half a million paid learners now and we aim to reach ¾ of a million by March 2023. By June 2023, we aim to hit our first 1 million paid learners on the platform. As far as how the ‘3 million’ number was conceived, 16 of us spent two days having multiple rounds of discussion and heavy number crunching to finally arrive at a target of 3 million.

YS: What is the current business model, and do you have any plans for funding?

US: As a company, we know we have to be financially prudent, and we can’t have our CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) greater than our AOV (Average Order Value). We have worked towards sustainably scaling our business. Currently, we are backed by Sri Chaitanya group which did a one-time investment of $50 million in June 2021. Our aspiration is to financially break-even by June 2023 and we will go for funding in the next few months.

YS: Name three aspects that differentiate Infinity Learn from any other edtech company in the market.

US: Firstly, we are very efficacy focused as we have actually taken a target of making students qualify for the NEET and JEE exams. Unlike other EdTechs in the market, we always wanted to be a sustainably driven company as opposed to a funding-driven one. So, from day one, we were financially prudent. And last but not least, we used technology to build a learner-focused platform that has algorithms to identify a student’s strengths and weaknesses. And we made sure that the technology could be managed at a large scale as well.

YS: 2022 hasn't been the best year for edtech - funding winter, layoffs, and the shutdown of companies. What do you think is a more sustainable way for EdTechs to grow in India?

US: Building a sustainable financial model is most important for any company. Companies must understand that they can’t be making Re 1 and then spending Rs 4 on acquiring customers. Yes, it’s important to reach out to parents and advertise, but there has to be a cost-effective method of doing that, rather than going for options that are costlier with lesser lead generation potential.

It’s also important for startups to understand that they don’t need to spend money on fancy infrastructure. A place that is safe and conducive to learning is what is important to the parents. And finally, money should be spent on having good teachers and good learning content.

YS: What are the top trends you foresee for the edtech industry for 2023?

US:

1. Learner success is the end goal that every organisation must strive to achieve.
2. Hybrid education definitely will have more weightage in the next few years than ever, because good infrastructure with good digital faculty is a great way to go. In fact, schools will tend to lean more towards this model, as they understand how difficult it is to get good faculty for students in higher standards.
3. Digital education is here to stay.
4. Financial stability is at the core of edtech startups, because at the end of the day it is someone else’s money that needs to be spent judiciously.