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March 02, 2010 EdServ acquires SmartLearn WebTV
Education and Placement Company EdServ has announced that it has signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) with the Chennai based SmartLearn WebTV, a company specialising in e-learning offering for IIT JEE and AIEEE aspirants. This is EdServ’s third acquisition in the last 6 months and immediately follows last week’s acquisition of Hyderabad based Education ERP provider SchoolMATE. Last September, EdServ acquired 2tion.com to expand its presence into the online tuition services space. New Revenue Stream With this acquisition, EdServ, which offers e-Learning courses, Online Tuition Services (2tion.com) for college and school students and helps Engineering Students pass exams through the in-campus and outside campus mode, adds a new revenue stream to its Education business and will now target the Rs.10,000 crore IIT-JEE & AIEEE Training space. First e-Learning offering in India to IIT JEE and AIEEE aspirants Targeted at students in class 7-12, SmartLearn offers training for IIT JEE through an innovative web TV concept. Smartlearn WebTV is the first company in India to have rolled out the IIT JEE and AIEEE training offering in an e-learning framework in Sharable Content Objects. Every topic has been separately shot in videos, thus enabling a student to modularise his learning and helping him refer to specific topics instantly while the exercises are being attempted. SmartLearn’s e-Learning platform brings direct to a student’s home the wealth of knowledge from some of the best professors including those who worked in IITs. The offering also includes live web based Online Classes, for select topics, by these experienced professors in a one-to-one as well as in a one-to-many Virtual learning Online. Priced between Rs.999 and Rs.5999, SmartLearn’s offering to IIT JEE aspirants comprises of 500 hours of learning, 2,500 videos containing lectures by senior professors, 3,000 pages of study materials, exposure to 10,000 unique problems spread over the IIT JEE syllabus and a chapter wise tests with a step-by-step learning solution. SmartLearn also has equal hours of content and exercises for AIEEE coaching. Commenting on the acquisition, S. Giridharan, Chairman and CEO, EdServ said, “SmartLearn has developed a first of its kind product for aspiring IIT JEE students. We were truly impressed with the list of professors comprising of ex-IITians with decades of experience in IIT JEE training, and young rank holders with a passion for teaching. With this acquisition, we believe we have a clearly differentiated offering in the IIT JEE & AIEEE training space that the aspiring students will find beneficial in their preparation for the examinations.” “The acquisition of SmartLearn provides us with immediate access to 10000 students who are already undergoing IIT JEE training, the entire web TV content of Smart Learn, the IP (Intellectual Property) and the best of professors in this field. We expect to start seeing the full impact on our revenues in 2010-11.” Swaminathan K, CEO, SmartLearn said, “EdServ has been on an aggressive growth path. Having conceived and developed what is truly a best in class product for aspiring IIT JEE students, we believe that EdServ, with its brand and national reach, is ideally positioned to take our offering into the market place and expand rapidly our student base in the coming years.” Plans for the acquired entity EdServ plans to launch SmartLearn’s WebTV offering Pan India with an aggressive marking strategy that will reach out to IITJEE and AIEEE aspirants desiring to appear for the exams in the next academic year. With this aggressive plan, EdServ is targeting to more than double the student base to over 25,000 students for IITJEE and an equal number for AIEEE. Last month, EdServ announced being awarded VTP (Vocational Training Provider) status for the Southern Region through which the company expects to train around 3Lakh unemployed and underemployed people. EdServ achieved revenues of Rs.15.51 and Net Profit of Rs.5.64crores for 3rd Quarter ended 31st December 2009. |