Startups help small-town India break big-city English barrier

When Arpit Mittal pivoted his third startup to focus on getting Indian kids unfamiliar with English to learn and speak the language, he was in for a few surprises.

- Rwit Ghosh

When Arpit Mittal pivoted his third startup to focus on getting Indian kids unfamiliar with English to learn and speak the language, he was in for a few surprises. His Gurugram-based edtech startup SpeakX began seeing a surge in users from India's tier II and tier III cities.

But that was not all. "It was an eye-opener for us that more than the kids, their parents were learning on our platform," said Mittal.

The idea for SpeakX had germinated from Yellow Class, which provided after-school activities for children studying from home during the covid-19 pandemic. As kids returned to school campuses post the pandemic, Yellow Class had to shut shop in 2023. But its English modules were so popular that Mittal decided to build a new business around those.

SpeakX, which charges users ₹300 per month, teaches English to those fluent in Hindi, with many of its users coming from Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar. The company realized that while many of its users were able to read and write in English, communication posed a main hurdlecrimping prospects for highpaying jobs.

Government think-tank NITI Aayog pointed out this issue in a December report. It noted that the talent and resources employed in several states were originally from other parts of India, and that a "significant contributing factor to this trend is the inadequate English language proficiency among local youth".

The average Indian's quest to learn to master fluency in English is reflected in the surge in SpeakX's user base-from 10,000 in September to about 108,000 now. "We have a retention rate of 30% and are adding close to 20% new users every month," Mittal said.

The company plans to expand its services to other regional languages as well, beginning with Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada.