Tech-based upskilling platform Geekster aims to enroll 2,000 students from tier-2 and tier 3 cities in FY23, taking the total count of students to 3,000 from the current 1,000 Ankit Maggu, CEO, Geekster told FE Education. It also plan to recruit about 50 more employees, thereby taking the employee number to 150. “Almost 90% of students come from tier-2 and tier-3 cities, where they do not get the right skill set for industry. The transition from college to job becomes tough for them. We aim to provide relevant skill sets to such students to get their first job,” he added.
The company aims to close FY23 with a net revenue of Rs 25 crore. Further it aims to break even, this year, Maggu claimed. It claims to have closed FY22 with a net revenue of Rs three crore at the back of net loss of Rs 30 lakh. Regulatory files accessed by business intelligence platform Tofler revealed that in its first year of operation, Geekster’s revenue from operation in FY21 stood at Rs 7.62 lakh, while it posted a net loss of Rs 20. “As a young company, we aim to achieve a good user-base and focus on content-base in the initial years. We will focus on profit maximisation once we score a good number of active users,” Maggu explained.
Geekster claims to monetise by selling courses directly to students. According to Maggu, the course fee varies between Rs 3-5 lakh, depending on the course structures. The duration of the courses are 6-8 months. “The courses are taught by industry educators from platforms such as Google, Facebook and Amazon. Once students are trained, they are placed across companies” Maggu noted. However, he further added that in FY23, the company aims to collaborate with industries and institutions to provide training and expand its business models. While students are placid free of cost, the company earns the course fee through an installement which can be paid for a maximum of 24 months.
As a part of its expansion plans, the company aims to launch new skill based products including data science, artificial intelligence and machine learning. “At present we only provide full stack programmes. However, we will launch other curriculum based programmes shortly,” Maggu said. In May, 2021, the company raised a total of Rs 1.5 crore in a Pre-seed round, from two investors including WFC (We Founder Circle) and ah! Ventures.
