Acclimatizing Students To The Future Employment Landscape Over 2021-22, the company witnessed a stellar growth with its revenue increasing 17 times over a period of 12 months
By Saptak Bardhan •
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.
PlanetSpark is an India-based global edtech platform that is building a one-stop online destination for students world over, to develop 21st century skills. These skills comprise public speaking, collaboration, critical thinking, logical reasoning and creativity.
"The requirement for these skills has been deemed relevant for personal and professional success in the present world, as well as, the one we will see 20-25 years down the line. While procedural and clerical tasks are ought to be entirely automated with minimal to zero human involvement, the future of work will require humans with expertise in these skills, for leadership roles," said Maneesh Dhooper, co-founder, PlanetSpark
PlanetSpark has an aim to deploy futuristic skill education and a vision to foster a generation of Confident Individuals, PlanetSpark is training children aged 4-17 years, through a unique WOW curriculum. According to a study by MIT, children are most adept at learning new skills till the age of 17, and hence PlanetSpark is doing a grassroot-level education intervention, to instil necessary skills in children, in their formative years itself. Presently, it has over 16,500 students enrolled on the platform, who come from 13 countries across North America, Middle East, and South-East Asia. While 55 per cent of PlanetSpark students are from India, the rest 45 per cent hail from international markets. In India, the majority of PlanetSpark students are coming from tier-2 cities. It has a metro to tier-2 student ratio of 30:70.
The company generates revenue through its course packages that vary according to the duration of the program. Most of the courses on the platform are long term. Additionally, while the brand is growing in terms of its user base, it has also maintained a student retention rate of 96-98 per cent that has ensured a consistent upward growth in the revenue.
PlanetSpark has operated as an online-only platform for the past two years and the model has proved to be a game-changer for the brand for reasons more than one. The company learnt valuable lessons in that duration as they learnt for children to get rid of their inhibitions pertaining to public speaking or sharing their ideas, they need personal mentorship and hand-holding at the initial stage. The founders wanted to foster teacher-student relationships similar to those between a doctor and a patient, wherein children could open up to their mentors in confidence.
PlanetSpark has been involved in creating one of the largest online communities of skilled communicators through engaging activities such as stand-up comedy, debating, investor pitching, storytelling, book writing, and theatre, among others. Through these activities, children from various countries and diverse ethnicities and cultures collaborate, learn, and compete with each other. These application-based activities and competitions help the students to leverage their learnt skills in a competitive environment and understand their practical use cases.
Over 2021-22, the company witnessed a stellar growth with its revenue increasing 17 times over a period of 12 months. PlanetSpark is currently recording an annualised revenue run rate (ARR) of $18 Million and with its growth plans for this year, the brand is expecting to touch $50 Million ARR by the end of FY 2022-23.
FACTSHEET
- Year of establishment - 2017
- No. of teachers – 3000+
- Amount of external funding and leading investors - $17.2 Million. The leading investor is Prime Venture Partners
- No. of students taught – 22,000
