HelloClass sets out to Provide Education to all of India

“In a country like India where there are close to 30Cr students and a shortage of quality teachers, the educational outcomes are appalling.” We speak to Prakash Rengarajan, Co-Founder and CEO, HelloClass to find out what’s special about the edtech startup.

When was HelloClass initiated?

Prakash Rengarajan and Bhaskar Raju Konduru founded HelloClass in 2015 to address the issue of accessibility of quality education in the country. The company is promoted by K. Ganesh and Meena Ganesh's entrepreneurial platform Growth Story.

Tell us more about HelloClass. What does it do?

HelloClass aims to bridge student learning outcomes by personalising the tutoring experience for each student. HelloClass uses its technology to match each student to the best possible tutor who can help her. From a personal tutor coming to students home to teach, to answering a doubt when a student is stuck while studying at midnight, HelloClass helps parents and students with all tutoring requirements. The technology platform also assesses students and creates a personalised plan for each student. This helps students maximise their learning outcomes.

How does it help students?

With the HelloClass app, students can instantly connect to teachers 24/7 and find a one-stop solution to any academic query. The edtech startup seamlessly connects students and teachers through its mobile app, thereby facilitating knowledge sharing and query resolution.

How does it help teachers?

For tutors, the platform helps them to teach students in the most effective way by providing appropriate teaching aids like relevant content, practise questions and also by managing their schedules and payments. With HelloClass tutors can focus purely on teaching and connect to a large number of students while having flexibility to teach as per their convenience

The company is on its mission to change the way education is delivered in India and herald a promising future. We believe that education should be accessible to each and every child irrespective of their geographical presence or time.

What sets HelloClass apart?

Free to use and a vast resource of study material - The app is free to use and covers all subjects such as Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and English. It covers all grades- junior, secondary and Intermediate and all the boards such as IB, IGCSE, ICSE, CBSE

Study Material at the convenience of your home - HelloClass has a library of solutions that other students have asked across Maths, Science and English and also provides tutors in Bangalore for all grades and subjects for personalised attention

Fast and Reliable - With a database of over 400 tutors, students can get expert help almost instantly

Ease of communication - Students are free to ask the online tutors as many questions as they want, over and over again till they get clarity on the subject without having to worry about what others will think

Focus on learning outcomes - The HelloClass platform is designed to maximise learning outcomes of students by providing them with a personal plan and helping students learn as per their abilities

What have been some of your challenges?

The greatest challenge for online education in India is Internet connectivity. The better the infrastructure, the more the popularity of online education in that area.

Getting good teachers is a challenge as not many people choose teaching as a career. We overcome this by signing up working professionals and students who like to teach on our platform.

Share with us what kind of traction HelloClass has gained.

HelloClass home tutoring services are available in Bangalore at present whereas the online tutoring and app based tutoring services are available all India. The HelloClass app is available on iOS, Android and the web as well. Within a very short span, the HelloClass app has already received 1.5 lakh downloads on the App Store and Play Store. We are rated 4.3 On Google Play and over 65% people have rated us 5/5.

With over 400 experienced and qualified tutors, HelloClass is a great app for not just those living in metros, but also for those who stay in the interiors of the country and do not have easy access to quality home tutors.

At HelloClass, more than 50% of our users hail from small towns such as Muzzafarpur, Jahanabad, Jaipur, Bundi, Beed District, Jalgaon etc. We cover about 80% of the Indian districts.

We are progressively expanding our reach and in the past 4 months itself, we have tutored more than 40,000 students that is equivalent to 1000 + classrooms offline.

The average time spent by a student on HelloClass is increasing and all key metrics of engagement have shown robust growth rates in the last few months. The average number of sessions per student has increased from 3 to 11 in 3 months. In the same time frame, the number of repeat students has grown from 9% to 60%.

What is the funding status?

HelloClass is promoted by K. Ganesh and Meena Ganesh's entrepreneurial platform Growth Story. HelloClass is planning to raise series A funding in the next few months

Future plans of the company?

HelloClass is looking at scaling the home tutoring service to 2 more cities in the next 2 months. In parallel, HelloClass is planning to add more subjects and languages to the online and app based tutoring.

Details of the market size and opportunity?

According to a report by the UK- India Business Council, India has become the largest market for e-learning after the US and is expected to grow at a compounded annual rate of 17.4% between 2013 and 2018, twice as fast as the global average. The scope for online education is vast and continues to grow as rural India adopts Internet in increasing numbers. As per a recent report by NASSCOM, web users in the country are expected to more than double to 730 million by 2020.

Any final thoughts you would like to share with us?

Founded with the motto of ‘Let’s teach. Let’s learn. Let’s help everybody bring out their true potential’, HelloClass creates a service that not only gives the solution but meets the standards of performance in the most secure, reliable and trustworthy manner.