A startup with a soul, Safalta provides quality content through low-bandwidth videos to expand accessibility in rural hinterlands.
The education industry underwent a significant change in the past two years due to the Covid-19 pandemic. With lockdowns disrupting the traditional mode of education, the entire industry and its stakeholders were forced to adapt to the ‘online’ mode of education. The rise in e-learning, which was an erstwhile by-product of this crisis, has now transformed into a major distinctive sector. While the EdTech companies responded to this crisis by accelerating digital learning and coming up with innovative solutions, one of the shortcomings that emerged as the nation was grappling with school closures was: the large digital divide in India, especially in semi-urban and rural areas.
The need emerged for a platform that was: vernacular, mindful of the sentiments of its target group, accessible and affordable, and that democratised education in its true essence. A platform that bridged the gap between education and employability became the need of the hour and one of the platforms that emerged was Safalta.
Established in 2020 with a purpose to level the playing field, Safalta has emerged as an outcome-based learning platform. Focused on providing affordable and quality education, the startup aims to eliminate wealth and gender disparities. An EdTech startup catering to Tier-2, 3 cities with 90% of its users confined to Uttar Pradesh, Safalta provides classes for as low as Rs 99 with the most popular package for 5 subjects for Rs 299.
The platform is designed for small screens (especially mobiles) and offers online learning in vernacular languages. Keeping in mind the bandwidth constraints, Safalta is focused on providing quality content through low-data browsing and providing free resources. Students are mentored online by experienced teachers and Safalta offers adaptive learning across three verticals: Academics, Vocational and Life Skills. One size doesn’t fit all, so Safalta provides comprehensive and tailor-made courses/programs to its students.
Himanshu Gautam, CEO & Co-founder of Safalta, says,
“Through Safalta, we intend to make students job-ready and broaden their access to education. With continuous effort to provide affordable education to students across India, we are preparing skilled, articulate, and motivated professionals of the future. Currently, we are working upon to build the biggest community of Safalta seekers in small towns and villages of India as we plan to deliver low bandwidth videos to expand accessibility in areas with low to minimum internet access.”
Driven by verifiable insights and quantifiable solutions, the company has managed to register one million-plus students on its platform, and its app downloads have grown 21X times in the year 2021. The platform has extended its support and services in the field of Grade 9-12 academics, Test Prep exams like NDA, Police, CTET, etc., and new-age skilling courses like Digital Marketing, graphics design, and data analytics.
For any course bought from Safalta, a student gets free lifetime access to it as the platform believes in driving down costs and assuring affordability. Apart from this, the platform provides access to free courses and study material like previous year question papers, mock tests, e-books, tips, and tricks videos through 100k + hours of content.
In order to keep their audience up-to-date and engaged, Safalta provides free job alerts and guides on how to apply for various exams online. Its website is currently visited by around one million visitors every month, and the company plans to take it to 10 million monthly visitors by the end of this year in an endeavour to have a large addressable base. Additionally, the company also has a motivational talks platform, “Safalta Talks”, wherein weekly informative sessions are conducted by industry stalwarts/people from different walks of life to give a more personalized touch to the overall training of the students and share insights that books cannot provide.
Safalta is committed to igniting the minds of its students with initiatives like Safalta Mitra where people associated with the company travel to remote areas to understand the requirements, educational status, and accessibility of the people. With utilities like personalized dashboards, comparative scorecards, peer group studies, attendance tracking, gamification, etc., the company is focused on providing the best services to its user base.
