Next Education Acqui-hires Edutech Startup Xolvr

In yet another attempt to make quality  education accessible to students, not just within the classroom, but also at home, Next Education has acqui-hired Xolvr, an online one-to-one learning solution provider for high school students.

The Gurugram-based company was started in February 2016 by Aamir Mojeeb and Mohammed Aqib, alumni of IIT Delhi and IIT Roorkee, respectively. The motive behind founding this edutech enterprise was to bridge the gap between students aspiring to get into top-notch colleges of the country and efficient teachers. Geographical limitations can sometimes hamper access to good teachers leading to students’  compromising on the quality of education. Further, in their quest to chase their dreams, they also end up spending a significant amount of money on personal tutors. The same applies to teachers with a huge knowledge resource, especially those belonging to tier-3 cities, who do not find students who match their calibre. Xolvr was conceptualised to bring an end to these concerns by connecting students from grades 6-12 with talented and knowledgeable undergraduate IITians and NITians.

At the time of acquisition, 50 teachers were associated with the company and provided one-on-one online mentoring to students through video-conferencing and a shared whiteboard. The main responsibility of the teachers comprise addressing students’ doubts in Mathematics, Physics and Computer Science, among others.  Xolvr has gained considerable success which is evident in  its figure of 300 registered users, 400 hours of online sessions and 34,000 subscribers with 18 lakh views on its YouTube channel.

Speaking about the acquisition, Aamir Mojeeb, co-founder, Xolvr said, “Parents often do not have sufficient time to look into their children’s studies and hence they look for a platform which can be a one-stop solution for all academic needs of their children, right from concept explanation and practice exercises to doubt clarification. Next Education’s self-learning solution LearnNext has all the requisites any parent would look for and therefore we decided to merge our online mentoring feature with LearnNext.” The aim of both Xolvr and Next Education, he added, is the same: to assist students in the learning process so they become successful in their future.

Next Education CEO and co-founder Beas Dev Ralhan said in a talk with The Economic Times, “This deal is based on the potential the two founders bring with them. The plan is that they will build the platform and we will help them scale and grow. ”