We are concentrating on promoting coding, reading and learning languages in addition to Maths & Science

Sarvesh Shrivastava, an alumnus of University of Illinois at Chicago, has been associated with some of the renowned names in education & IT from Encyclopedia Britannica to NIIT LTd and Pearson Vue. Last year, he turned a digital school solutions evangelist along with Rohit Dhar, Ved Prakash Khatri and Amit Kapoor founded Eupheus Learning.

Set up in May 2017 as EdTech company operating in K-12 space, Eupheus Learning. Is  providing end to end digital and customized solutions.

In a brief interview with Sarvesh Shrivastava, co-founder and Managing Director, Eupheus Learning, Autar Nehru attempted to know the excitement around this new and promising EdTech company.

So, let’s begin by knowing the conceptualization and genesis of Eupheus Learning and also your interest in education sector?

I have had the privilege to work with progressive organization(s) such as General Electric, Corning and Telecom Australia in the leadership roles before shifting gears and venturing into EdTech domain completely with NIIT, Pearson and Encyclopaedia Britannica.

After spending over 17 years in education and IT sectors, I have witnessed the changing paradigm of the education sector in India. I have always envisioned creating an organization dedicated to offering pedagogically differentiated technology driven solutions that lead to critical thinking and achievement of higher learning outcomes in the K-12 space.

The eureka moment for me comes when I stumble across a gap or a pain point. The pain in this case is felt by many students, parents and educators alike when home learning is supplemented with tuition which may be at variance to the progression or pedagogy or the difficulty level being taught in class. Eupheus Learning was born to bridge this growing gap by offering an end-to-end solution which is non-existent in the market today.

At Eupheus, the endeavour is to ignite curiosity in young learner’s mind and as an organization we ourselves are looking at the K12 space with a fresh pair of eyes.

Can you give us an idea of investment both in terms of finance and preparation (time, work) that has gone into this venture?

We started this company by the team investing our own money, around Rs 6.5 Cr. and till February 2018, we were completely bootstrapped. Well, in terms of preparing for this startup one can easily say that, the preparation has been going on since the past 17 years, we have been in this sector.

Before starting this journey of Entrepreneurship, the management team, which is leading Eupheus Learning, did a successful turnaround of the Indian arm of a global education entity and made it profitable in a short span of time. But we felt that there were some unresolved ongoing challenges which we felt we would be able to address only if we were doing the journey on our own.

Today, we are glad we made that transition because now, in just a span of over 10 months that the company has been formed, we have a reach to over 1 million students and 1500 institutions who subscribe to our various solutions. We target reaching 10 million kids in the next couple of years.

And what is the business/revenue plan?

We develop hybrid solutions including textbooks and digital material (in offline and online form) to seamlessly integrate in-class and at-home learning so that it is much easier for a student to understand a concept. Offered on a subscription basis, these innovative solutions can be bought as a bundle or as a standalone service.

We are talking about O2O (Offline to Online) approach whereas most of the companies are doing the opposite. Our strength is the relationships we have with decision makers in schools Pan India; we want to have their trust via offering in class solutions which will in turn transition into at home learning solutions.

You call yourself a start-up, can you illustrate, how do you intend to scale up?

We are a start-up in terms of being less than a year-old company but each of our 75 plus member team has a minimum of ten years’ experience in the space. We have over 10 global and reputed partners such as World Book Inc., Sanako, Primo Toys, Wizefloor, Fiction Express and Robogarden. We will keep on adding innovative solutions to our portfolio and provide the best curated solutions to foster critical thinking and motivate kids to move away from ROTE learning.

Recently, we announced the strategic partnership with one of India’s oldest and reputed publisher of academic textbooks in the K12 space, Allied Publishers. With this partnership, we aim to reach over 3.5 Million students this year with over 350 titles, including the acclaimed series, Simplified ICSE Chemistry by Dr.Viraf J. Dalal, critically reviewed by over 1000 Chemistry Teachers from all over India, and the English Language Learning (Phonetic) series, Radiant Reader. All the titles will be co-branded and made available in suitable formats for the new age learners.

Our scale up plan is to do add new geographies – we shall be present Pan India this year, add solutions for higher classes (Grade IX – XII) and then move into the public school space with State specific solutions. Another growth avenue is to move into direct to consumer space which shall happen over the next couple of years.

You have had several tie ups; can you briefly discuss these?

We offer solutions that are applicable at home as much as they are in the classroom, so there is no discontinuity in what is being learned. While many start-ups are mainly focusing on maths and science, we are concentrating on promoting coding, reading and learning languages as well.

Your interest in K-12 segment is obvious, but will be you confined to this segment  only?

While our core focus will remain K-12 segment, we will keep adding curated engaging and learning solutions for knowledge seekers in all age categories.

Future plans?

To work towards making Eupheus Learning as number one learning solutions provider. We have all the ingredients to be that organization; a team of best in industry editorial resources, dedicated sales and marketing professionals and credible partners offering pedagogically differentiated technology driven solutions that lead to critical thinking.

Your personal journey and 3 things that excite you currently?

My personal journey can be summarized as always doing something new and learning from new challenges.

The three things that currently excite me are the innovative ways of teaching with technology, games-based learning and the untapped potential of digital libraries for K-12 education in India.