Next Education: Revolutionizing India’s K-12 Schools with Deflationary Tech and Integrated B2B Solutions

"If technology is not fundamentally deflationary, it has got no adoption. You cannot call it a tech startup if you charge double the price of the traditional alternative." This uncompromising stance by Beas Dev Ralhan, co-founder of Next Education, is why he has survived—and thrived—while the B2C edtech bubble of billions burst around him. By focusing on the "unaddressable" 70% of Indian students who attend mid-range private schools, Ralhan has built a profitable SaaS-based powerhouse that serves over 12 million students across 18,000 schools.

While industry giants like Byju’s and Unacademy focused on the expensive "home learning" model, Next Education took a contrarian B2B approach. Ralhan realized that the quality problem in Indian education couldn't be solved by humans alone—there aren't enough high-quality teachers at the price point that the Indian middle class can afford. The solution? Embedding technology directly into the classroom to assist the teacher and bridge the divide between school and home.

The Quality Crisis: Why Humans Aren't Enough

The core problem in the Indian K-12 sector is capacity building. While the government expanded B.Ed colleges, the rigor often didn't match the need. "Capacity building exercises don't change course in one or two years; they take decades," Ralhan explains. In a typical private school charging ₹2,000 a month, the economics simply don't support hiring high-quality teachers who can create their own lesson plans and stay updated with global trends.

Next Education identifies its sweet spot as the student who can afford roughly ₹30,000 a year for education. "That's 70% of your school-going kids. They do not have an extra ₹20,000 for self-learning apps. If the parent had that money, they would just upgrade the school." By solving the problem in the classroom, Next Education reaches students where they already are.

The Contrarian Win: Beating the Billion-Dollar Giants

Ralhan is candid about his rivalry with the VC-funded giants. "I was bigger than all of them seven years ago combined. They raised billions and are now struggling for a business model," he says. His math was simple: if a child is already in school for 6-8 hours, that is the primary site of learning. Adding an expensive, separate digital layer at home is a "joke" for the mass market.

When Next Education launched TeachNext, they disrupted the market leader Educomp by fundamentally breaking down the cost. By moving from a heavy client-server model to a simple per-box, per-month fee, they scaled to 10,000+ schools in record time. Today, they remain the largest digital classroom content provider in the country, even competing successfully against conglomerates like Reliance, Tata, and HCL.

Creating Moats: The Language and Visual Secret

Why can't global giants like Pearson simply import American content into India? Ralhan points to minute research details. "In the US, students understand science at 120 words a minute. In India, it must be under 110 words a minute or the child gets bored and lost."

Visual context also matters. American classrooms are often closed due to weather, using hues of blue in their content. Indian classrooms have bright sunlight streaming in, requiring hues of red to remain visible and engaging. Even the cultural context of showing diverse communities (Hindu, Muslim, Sikh) is essential for relatability. This deep localization is a moat that global players find impossible to cross.

From $10B Gaming to K-12 Education

The founding team of Next Education brought a unique perspective: they came from PartyGaming, a company that had a bigger IPO than Google in 2005. Having built a $10 billion company before, they were "done" with that part of their lives and wanted to do something with large-scale social impact. They chose education over healthcare because of their own backgrounds as successful students who had cleared India’s competitive exams.

They deliberately avoided the competitive exam and higher education sectors. Ralhan believes higher education is destined to be won by Western brands like Carnegie Mellon or platforms like Coursera. Instead, they doubled down on B2B K-12 because it was the most localized and "defendable" segment.

The Future: Personalized Learning at Scale

Next Education is now in the race to solve the "holy grail" of the internet: **Personalized Learning**. By working with the EdTech department at IIT Bombay, they are building systems that can distinguish between a lack of intelligence and a lack of motivation. Is the student struggling with a concept, or did they just not study because of a lack of power at home? Solving this distinction is the key to the next multi-billion dollar edtech evolution.

"The most valuable company in the world will be the one that solves personalized learning," Ralhan concludes. While others chase bubbles, Next Education continues its surgical pursuit of a high-quality, affordable, and fundamentally Indian education for every child.

Key Takeaways

For School Leaders: Technology is an assistant, not a replacement. Tools like TeachNext allow your teachers to focus on student engagement rather than lesson planning.

For EdTech Founders: Stop competing with tuition centers and focus on the classroom. B2B distribution is a much stronger moat in India than high-burn B2C customer acquisition.

For Parents: An expensive app at home is no substitute for a better school. Look for institutions that are integrating technology into the primary 6-hour learning window.

About the Guest

Beas Dev Ralhan is the Co-founder and CEO of Next Education. An IIT Bombay alumnus with an MBA from London Business School, Ralhan was a key member of the leadership team at PartyGaming before co-founding Next Education in 2007. Under his leadership, the company has become a pioneer in the K-12 segment, building an integrated SaaS ecosystem that empowers schools across India and the Middle East.