Confident Of Steady Growth In 2023

Edtech is among the sectors in the Indian startup community that have witnessed a boom. Online learning became the new normal after the pandemic, but as in other businesses the economic slowdown caught up with edtech platforms too. 

“At Toprankers, this year has been a mixed blessing. As a significant achievement, we raised our Series A of USD 4 million with highly acclaimed VC firm, Sixth Sense Ventures which has helped us to put our feet on the speed pedal,” says Gaurav Goel , Chief Executive Officer, Toprankers. 

The year 2023 is expected to be better in terms of growth, expansion and funding, he believes, as long as the edtech sector remains prudent in its strategies, he added. 

“We will be focusing on the growth percentile as it remains uncertain for everyone, and it's just what consistency in the right path makes it bloom. So, we will be expecting steady growth next year. Study products act as successive steps in the education ladder; therefore, we will be marking efficient products soon to enhance learning,” says Goel.

Goel describes the year 2022 as “engaging and eventful”. He says, “We welcomed our newly launched hybrid centre at Indore, delivered outstanding results in serving domains, organised rewarding events etc. We also celebrated festivities with our students by building an engaging Grand Learning Festival with celebrations across the month.”.

In the year ahead Toprankers plans to be more intense in its engagement with students. “We will be inclined to propel students with a 360-degree approach, career guidance, and end-to-end assistance, along with personalised learning experiences in the near future,” he says. 

Even edtech platforms, however, were not immune to the global economic headwinds that led to mass lay-offs in industry segments driven by technology – from ecommerce to edtech.  The lay-offs were either prompted by technological advancements that rendered some manpower superfluous or the compulsions to contract businesses in the face of competition. 

 “To keep up with fierce competition and avoid the thought of layoffs, I realised the need to devise a new approach to achieve the planned targets,” says the Toprankers CEO.

“Some of my alternative approaches were aligning company with OKR (used in Google & Amazon) framework, attaining investment from Sixth Sense Ventures, growing the company steadily through the funding winter, introducing Hybrid classrooms to boost the interactive learning experience and developing a powerful team that ensures quality content delivery,” he says.