The education tech market has seen their players moving heavily over the past few months and another player in the field has now made a big move as Veranda Learning has purchased the start-up in the test preparation field called T.I.M.E for Rs. 287 crores according to official sources.
The announcement came out on April the 25th that they will be putting pen to paper to complete the transaction.
The entire transaction is set to take place in two separate stages with the first one happening now. 80% of the firm will be transferred to the new owners while the remaining ownership will be transferred in two years according to the official deal.
T.I.M.E is now over thirty years old as it was founded back in 1991. They create and supply test preparation mock question papers for a range of competitive exams. They have operations all over the country. They have 188 outlets which includes franchises sprawled over 98 cities in the country.
They are mainly known for their MBA mock exam papers and even other competitive exams like CAT, XAT, and GMAT. Around 2 lakh people take the CAT every year, so you can see the potential for the survival of a market there. These exams are very competitive and students are always looking to get their hands on various test preparation papers to get the highest score they can get.
They even make mock papers in the field of law with CLAT mock papers and even in the medical field as they form NEET mock exam papers. They complete the trio of the three most popular fields of education as they even prepare JEE mock exam papers which are written by prospective engineering students.
Over 10 lakh students take NEET exams every year which is already a massive market. Add around 9 lakhs more student who write JEE and another lakh who try to crack CLAT exams every year, and just there three examinations bring them most of their customers and therefore most of their revenue.
According to the company, they are now focusing on expanding their operations to the corners of India as they look to penetrate their market even more.
T.I.M.E Kids is a subsidiary of them which runs many preschools. As of 2017, they were present in over 350 pre-schools.
The education sector has been doing very well recently with many companies like Newton School and Byjus showing great growth prospects. Only time will tell if Veranda Learning can become as big as well.