Advitiya Sharma, a cofounder of Housing.com, sold her venture Genius Teacher to Schoolnet, an edtech company that offers digital classroom services to government institutions, amid a larger consolidation in the edtech space.

Over the past six to eight months, a number of acquisitions in the area have concluded, including the acquisition of test prep player Ekagrata Eduserv by Google-backed edtech company Adda247, the purchase of Doubtnut by Peak XV-backed Allen Career Institute, and the acquisition of Macmillan Learning India by mid-tier IT services firm Happiest Minds.

Informants have revealed that K12 Techno Services and SoftBank-backed Unacademy are in negotiations to combine.

Genius Teacher was purchased in an all-stock transaction. It is a quiz-based online learning platform targeted at K–12 students. Since its founding, the firm has garnered around $3 million in funding.

By this purchase, Schoolnet expands its reach to more than 10,000 private schools by FY27 and gains access to Genius Teacher's breakthrough AI-led teacher and student applications as well as its market position in the private school sector.

After the purchase, Sharma, who will take on the role of chief growth officer at Schoolnet, stated, "We felt there could be a bigger game to be played by joining forces with Schoolnet." We got bids for finance from institutional investors.

Schoolnet released a statement stating that it generated sales of Rs 429 crore in FY24 and earned Rs 69 crore in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (Ebitda).

Other edtech companies that collaborate with schools in the K–12 market include Lead, financed by GSV Ventures, and Uolo, supported by Blume Ventures.

The British educational services company Pearson sold its K–12 business in India to the edtech unicorn Lead last year. Pearson has also sold its K–12 businesses in other regions.

Deborah Quazzo, managing partner of GSV Ventures, an investor in edtech, had stated that consolidation in the industry will occur even if it hadn't taken up as much speed as anticipated due to the slump that the firms in the market had to deal with.

It is your responsibility to persuade the seller that the equity is worthwhile if you are contributing equity to the transaction. and money is valuable. You are in this state of disequilibrium generally. 

Byju's was undoubtedly a powerful buyer and they are currently out of the market, eliminating one of the forces. However, consolidation will take place. It makes a great deal of sense," she'd said.

Byju's, which is currently dealing with legal opposition from its creditors and investors, spent more than $2.5 billion in 2021 purchasing many businesses to increase its footprint in the reskilling and education sectors.