Daybreak - Physics Wallah is going public. But can one man carry a listed company?

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

Physics Wallah has filed for a ₹3,820 crore IPO earlier this week making it India’s first  edtech unicorn to go public. Founded by Alakh Pandey, the YouTube tutor turned entrepreneur, PW disrupted test prep with free videos and low-cost courses. It scaled into a unicorn with offline centres, AI tools, and millions of loyal students. But as it steps into the public markets, Pandey’s cult-like persona, the company’s biggest strength, may also be its biggest risk. Can a business built around one man survive investor scrutiny?Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Hi, this is Rohan Dharma Kumar. If you've heard any of the Ken's podcasts, you've probably heard me. My interruptions, my analogies and my contrarian takes on most topics. And you might rightly be wondering why am I interrupting this episode too. It's for a special announcement. For the last few months, I and Sita Raman Ganeshan, my colleague and the Ken's deputy editor, have been working on an ambitious new podcast. It's called Intermission.

We want to tell the secret sauce stories of India's greatest companies. Stories of how they were born, how they fought to survive, how they build their organizations and culture, how they manage to innovate and thrive over decades, and most importantly, how they're poised today. To do that, Sita and I have been reading books, poring over reports, going through financial statements, digging up archives, and talking to dozens of people. And if that wasn't enough, we also decided to throw in video into the mix. Yes, you heard that right. Intermission has also had to find its footing in the world of multi-camera shoots in professional studios, laborious editing, and extensive post-production. Sita and I are still reeling from the intensity of our first studio recording.

Intermission launches on March 23rd. To get an alert as soon as we release our first episode, please follow Intermission on Spotify and Apple Podcasts or subscribe to the Ken's YouTube channel. You can find all of the links at the ken.com slash I am. With that, back to your episode. Not many expected physics waller to be the first Indian ed tech company to make it to the stock market.

Because just two years ago, the company was in the middle of messy tutor defections, offline stumbles and questions about whether its restless expansion was even sustainable. And yet, earlier this week, it filed an updated prospectus with Seby for a $3,820 crore rupee IPO, putting itself on track to become the country's first publicly listed at tech company. The plan is ambitious. Most of the money raised will go into expanding its offline footprint, covering lease costs and upgrading servers and cloud systems, and invest.

investing in subsidiaries like Utkarsh. More than 700 cro rupees is set aside for marketing alone. The founders, Alak Pandey and Pratik Maheshwari, will each sell a small part of their own holdings, but they'll still retain a dominant stake in the company. Now, this is a remarkable milestone for a company that began in 2016 as a YouTube channel. Pandey, a physics teacher then from Preyag Raj, filmed lessons on a borrowed phone teaching for free what bigger ed techs charge tens of thousands of rupees for. That strategy, affordable, accessible test prep quickly turned him into a cult figure for millions of students.

But the very thing that built physics voila is also its biggest risk. The company is inseparable from its founder, Alak Pandey. His name is on classrooms, on products, on even its AI platform Alak AI. And as the company steps into the unforgiving world of public markets, investors will want to know. Can an ed tech, which is so tied to one man, survive the scrutiny of life as a listed company? Welcome to Daybreak, a business podcast from the Ken. I'm your host, Nick Dha Sharma, and I don't chase the news cycle. Instead, every day of the week, my colleague Rachel Vargis and I

will come to you with one business story that is worth understanding and worth your time. Today is Thursday, the 11th of September. A little less than two years. A little less than two years, ago, on the same podcast, I told you about the story of Physics Walla's restless expansion, how Alak Pandey went from a one-man YouTube channel solving JEE physics problems to building India's youngest and only profitable air tech unicorn. But that rapid rise was not without turbulence. Tutors defected in a dramatic fashion, offline centers began to show cracks and rivals circled its core stronghold of N-EET and J-E-E-E-P. Physics Walla was no longer just a master of one subject.

It was trying to become an everything ed tech. And the question that we left hanging was, would this ambition cost them their edge? Well, fast forward to today, and that question has only gotten bigger. Because physics waller isn't just expanding anymore. It is going public. And that means investors, regulators,

and the market at large will finally get a clear look at whether it's fast and furious growth. is sustainable? Or is it just smoke and mirrors? To understand how we got here, let's rewind a little. Back in its early days, physics Walla was a disruptor. At a time when Baiju's Anacadami and Vedantu were charging 20 to 30,000 rupees for their courses, Pandey gave away his lessons for almost free. His videos were quirky, performative, but razor-focused on exam tricks. And they drew in the masses who could not dream of paying premium coaching fees. It wasn't just cheap, it was democratizing. For the first time, students outside of India's metros

felt that they had an equal shot at cracking the toughest of examinations. Other players had tinkered with this idea. For example, Doubt Nut, which leaned on automated doubt-solving as a low-cost model. But Pandey's move was more radical. To give away the most expensive part of EdTech, which was quality video teaching at near zero cost. That crashed acquisition costs and created a grassroots following for him. And from there, the growth story is well documented.

The YouTube channel snowballed into a sprawling ed tech empire complete with offline centers. And unlike its rivals, Physicswala did not wait for the pandemic hangover to push it offline. It jumped almost immediately. But with that expansion came new headaches. Offline centers demanded more resources, teachers clashed with management, and competitors sharpened their nights. Physics Waller was no longer just this crappy insurgent anymore. It had to play the establishment game.

And through it all, the ed tech maintained a careful image. It was still the student's friend, still the homegrown hero, still a little scrappy. Its media narrative stayed tightly controlled, sullied only by the occasional viral YouTube spat between loyalists and defectors. Now, as it prepares for life on the public markets, the question shifts. How does Physics Walla want to present itself to investors? Here is the latest on it. Physics Waller has filed its updated DRHP with Sebi.

In plain English, that is the regulatory go-head for its IPO. The company is looking to raise nearly $3,820 crore rupees, and most of it will come from fresh shares, while Alak Pandey and co-founder Pritik Maheshwari will each sell a small slice of their holdings. And the money is not just for sure. A large chunk is earmarked to open new offline centres and cover long leases. Another portion will flow into subsidiaries like Zylim and Utkarsh. And some will go into cloud infrastructure with a heavy sum into marketing as well.

In other words, physics waller is telling the market, we are here to expand and we know where the money is going. Now, it is worth remembering, though, that this was not their first move. Back in March, Physics Walla filed confidentially for a bigger IPO about 4,600 crore rupees. And that let them fine-tuned details behind closed doors before going public with the updated filing. And now that Sebi has cleared it, the documents are out in the open. So, what do these documents tell us? For one, the financials do look sharper.

In the last financial year, income rose to nearly 2,900 crore rupees up from about 1,000. 940 crore rupees in the year before. Losses also shrank dramatically from over 1,000 crore down to just a couple of 100 crores. Investors do like tragic trees and this one does tell a cleaner story. Ownership also remains steady. Pandey and Maheshwari still dominate with more than 40% each. Plus, big names like Westbridge, Hornbill and Lightspeed hold smaller slices. And on the IPO front, Kotak, J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs and

and access are lined up as the lead managers. Now, of course, filings also force a company to show its not so good side. And here, physics wallah flagged something unusual, student security. The DRHP specifically cites incidents like the 2023 viral video of a staffer pushing a student and another where a student threatened a teacher over a video call. In both cases, staffers were removed. But in the cold text of regulatory filings, those incidents, now live forever and may weigh on investor perception.

So that is the setup. From a restless expansion in 2023 to a cleaned-up market-ready IPO pitch in 2025. The numbers show progress, the plan looks ambitious and the risks are acknowledged. But there is still one thing at the center of this story. One man, one brand, one myth. Alak Pandey. More on him in the next segment. So at the heart of it all is saying,

still Alak Pandey. And that is both Physicswala's greatest strength and its biggest risk. We've seen how dangerous it can be to build a company around one founder. Bayju's lived that story and every decision funneled through one man no matter what the evidence was. Physics Walla looks a little different. Pandey may be the superstar, but he has shown that he can take advice from Pratik Maheshwari, his business side co-founder and from investors steering expansion into new category. Still, the reliance is heavy. Even the AI suite is branded ALUC AI as though the technology itself needs his stamp

to be credible. From the first funding round to today's IPO, Pandey's name has been both a superpower and a vulnerability. So the question is, what happens if he ever steps away? Can physics voila survive without its walla? For now, the company seems confident. The IPO is very much tied to Alux persona. But Pandey himself is not cashing out big.

And that signals his long-term commitment. And beyond the man, there is also the mission. Physics Walla knows exactly what it is, an exam-cracking machine. Students come for fast tricks, concise revisions and pep talks. It is not about slow, immersive learning. It is about passing the test and it makes no apologies about it. But here's the nuance. Every so often, in between the formulas and the shortcuts,

you will see Pande consoling students who did not score well or encouraging those burnt out by the grind. And that human touch, the sense that somebody cares is part of physics Walla's magic. Even as it experiments with new business lines like career tech and upskilling, those feel more like window dressing. They may please investors by showing a full student to career pipeline, but the real story, the beating heart of physics waller, is still test prep. The question now is how much investor influence will shape the next chapter. Will physics Walla double down on its proven exam model?

Or will it lean harder into new categories to sell a bigger growth story? One thing is clear. It is willing to be agile. It has adopted AI tools quickly, though still wrapped in a luxe branding, and it is willing to flex its cloud. Remember, when Pandey went to the Supreme Court in 2024 over any 188, mismanagement? That wasn't quite lobbying. It was a public stand and it made physics Walla look less like a company and more like a student champion. And that dual identity, part

VC-backed business, part teacher with a heart, might just be its sharpest pitch. But IPOs are not just about stories. They are about sustainability and here the test is tougher. Can physics Swala keep its offline empire running smoothly? Can it manage the risks of being a brand tied so tightly to one man? Can it show investors that its growth is real and not just a myth? So, here we are. A homegrown ed tech born out of affordability and hustle, now stepping into the glare of the public markets.

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of the Ken, India's first subscriber-focused business news platform. What you're listening to is just a small sample of a subscriber-only offerings and a full subscription offers daily, long-form feature stories, newsletters and a whole bunch of premium podcasts. To subscribe, head to the ken.com and click on the red subscribe button on the top of the website. Today's episode was hosted and produced by my colleague Snitha Sharma and edited by Rajiv Sien.