Investor funding not good for edtech

Investors’ funding in the edtech space is driving an unwarranted behaviour which is not good for the industry, Byju's Aakash Education Services Ltd (AESL) Managing Director and CEO Deepak Mehrotra has said. Mehrotra also said that digital alone can't meet aspirations of medical and engineering students looking to get into premium institutions, and it is important to address requirement of new learners.

"Investors' funding is very clearly driving behaviours which are not good for anyone, I only hope sanity prevails," said Mehrotra who was appointed AESL's CEO on Monday. He was replying to a query about the need for consolidation in the edtech and test preparatory space where there has been a lot of changes in the business models of several firms.

During the edtech's growth stage, several brick-and-mortar test preparatory firms entered the online space, while online education firms added brick-and-mortar centres. Mehrotra said digital alone is not enough to address the requirement of students preparing for high stake examinations.