PHYSICS WALLAH: SEEKING MOMENTUM IN THE SOUTH

The company lacks mass and velocity in the region. Will the IPO proceeds help it accelerate?

- Mansi Verma

When the pandemic pushed learning online, demand for Alakh Pandey's (right) content surged. Thereafter, he partnered with Prateek Maheshwari, an IIT graduate and serial entrepreneur, and launched the Physics Wallah app.

Physics Wallah (PW) has been taught some sobering lessons in Kozhikode, Kerala, one of its most ambitious southern bets.

The city, which became part of the edtech company's network after its acquisition of Xylem Learning in 2023, quickly emerged as a major revenue contributor. Briefly, it even became PW's top offline revenue driver.

But the red herring prospectus (RHP) for the company's ₹3,480 crore initial public offering (IPO) showed that in the first quarter of fiscal year 2026 (FY26), Kozhikode fell to third place, going down from about 10.5% of total offline revenue to around 6%, having been overtaken by Delhi National Capital Region and Patna. Revenue from the city dropped to ₹24 crore in the three months ended June 2025 from ₹34 crore a year earlier, falling nearly 30%. The IPO offer documents attribute this decline to PW scaling back hostel operations for "strategic reasons."

Kozhikode was meant to be PW's anchor in the South, which generally sees a more structured, often integrated, test-prep model. Instead, its performance has been a loud reminder: if India were one market, biryani recipes and coaching habits would look the same everywhere. But they don't.

PW is looking to build momentum beyond the North, its stronghold. Flush with funding from its IPO (the company will get listed on Tuesday), it is hoping to build the mass and velocity needed for that. The IPO, with a ₹3,100 crore fresh issue, got a lukewarm response but made it past the finish line thanks to demand from qualified institutional buyers.