India’s edtech unicorn swaps mass-market scale for smaller, hybrid classrooms in UAE — and eyes growth even in the wake of the conflict

Indian edtech unicorn PhysicsWallah (PW) has grown its GCC revenue 4.7x since acquiring Dubai-based Knowledge Planet in 2023 — proof, according to PW Gulf CEO Mohammed Saad Salmaan (LinkedIn), that ditching the mass-online model that built the company at home was the right call. The company has seen 5x growth in student learners over the past year since its launch in the region, Salmaan notes.

The Knowledge Planet acquisition gave PW eight centers, a decade of local presence, and an existing customer base and trust in the UAE, Salmaan tells EnterpriseAM — but it still had to reckon with a different type of clientele and their different needs in the Gulf.

But first, who’s PW? PW is a market leader in Indian test-prep, offering 500 offline centers across India and serving more than 4.2 mn active digital learners. It listed on India’s National Stock Exchange and Bombay Stock Exchange in November 2025 at a market cap of over USD 4.8 bn and raised USD 415 mn in proceeds. Its revenue rose 24.4% y-o-y to INR 10.5 bn (USD 109.7 mn) in 1Q FY 2027, as per its latest financial statement (pdf). It currently runs 18 physical and hybrid facilities across the GCC, with 10 locations in the UAE, its largest Gulf market, four in Saudi Arabia, and two each in Oman and Qatar.

A different market calls for a different business model

The UAE’s edtech market is expected to reach USD 5.3 bn by 2030, growing at a 15.1% CAGR. But the market in the UAE — with higher disposable incomes and consumer expectations — led PW to pivot to a hyper-localized, offline-centric model, a very different model from the one at home. In India, PW streams live classes to as many as 200k students at once. “In the Gulf, students and parents want a bit more personal attention and smaller batches. Hence, we had to cater our solution for that need we saw in the market,” Salmaan says, adding that they capped class sizes at roughly 30 students.

PW’s natural entry point was the Gulf’s 700-800k strong Indian expatriate student base, falling under the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) curriculum, Salmaan tells us. It specifically eyes the over 120k high school students in grades 9-12 preparing for the competitive medical (NEET) and engineering (JEE) entrance exams, held back in India.

What’s next?

PW is in the early stages of testing programs like coding and English language coaching for Arabic speakers, as it looks to expand its addressable market beyond Indian expats to other students and working professionals. It also wants to expand its offerings to other GCC countries through more online batches, Salmaan says.

It also wants to scale its core test-prep network across the UAE and Saudi Arabia, Salmaan says. The Kingdom, despite its high regulatory setup costs, “rewards patience” and physical expansion over pure digital scale, he argues.

**This story was amended to note that the company saw 5x growth in student learners since its launch in the region, not YTD, and to remove mention of "girls-only" online batches, which was not factually accurate.