S Chand and Company Limited, one of India’s largest Education content Companies , will sell its entire stake in the AI/Data Sciences focussed Ed Tech platform iNeuron Intelligence Private Limited to Physicswallah for a consideration of ~INR 14 crores. In addition, our co-investors, Mukesh Sharma Family Trust would also be exiting their investment in iNeuron Intelligence Private Limited
With a return of over 2x on the original investment of approx. Rs7 crores in December 2021, this is the second recent exit for S Chand and Company Limited from its various Edtech Investments on back of the recently concluded exit in Testbook with an ~ 8x return on investment in July, 2022.
S Chand along with its wholly owned subsidiaries Vikas Publishing and Chhaya Prakashani had acquired a minority stake in iNeuron Intelligence Private Limited in December 2021 in two tranches; it completed its second tranche of investment in September 2022. Both the companies have agreed to collaborate and worked together on university collaborations.
Commenting on the exit, Saurabh Mittal, CFO of S Chand and Company Limited said, “This announcement is a definitive step in the portfolio diversification journey that we set out on. iNeuron and S Chand have agreed to work together to empower students and job seekers with education and experiential skills regardless of their economic and academic backgrounds and have built together a learning infrastructure that does not restrict itself to physical settings. We are happy to now hand over the reins to one of India’s most loved education platforms and are confident that both iNeuron and PhysicsWallah with their expert faculty and focus on blended solutions will have great synergy and the potential to spearhead India’s digital learning journey.”
Mittal further adds, “This transaction additionally enables us to monetize our EdTech investments at an attractive valuation and provides opportunities to explore future investments that align with our growth strategies. We are focused on developing our own solutions and channels of interactive learning for K-12, test prep & college and will be launching newer initiatives and content to spearhead and navigate India’s journey on back of the New Education Policy 2020. ”
The company has its own digital business includes platforms such as S Chand Academy (YouTube), TestCoach App, Learnflix App and Mylestone Curriculum Solutions and is also an investor in Smartivity Labs private Limited which is an education STEAM toys company founded by IIT alumni Ashwini Kumar, Apoorv Gupta and Rajat Jain
Our co-Investor, Mukesh Sharma is a serial entrepreneur and educationist who has founded multiple companies including QA InfoTech (now a Qualitest company), one of the leading software testing and quality assurance companies. His latest endeavour in the field of education includes Prometheus School, a state-of-the-art education facility located in the heart of Noida which is an authorized IB World School for Primary Years, Middle Years and Diploma Programmes.
LoEstro Advisors LLP is the exclusive financial advisors to iNeuron and the exiting shareholders.
