VC Lightspeed Venture Partners Exits Physicswallah With ₹550-Crore Block Deal; Stock Falls Nearly 1%

Venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners exited PhysicsWallah by selling its entire 1.61% stake in the edtech company for nearly ₹550 crore through a block deal on the NSE.

After the stake sale, PhysicsWallah shares fell nearly 1% to ₹125.19 on the exchange.

Lightspeed Opportunity Fund II LP, an affiliate of the US-based investor, sold 4,66,98,120 equity shares, representing a 1.61% stake in Noida-based PhysicsWallah.

The transaction was executed on Wednesday at an average price of ₹117.72 per share, totalling ₹549.73 crore.

A clutch of institutional investors stepped in to buy the shares, with 16 participants purchasing the stock at the same price.

ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund emerged as the biggest buyer, picking up 2.20 crore shares, or around 0.76% stake, for ₹258.98 crore.

Five Goldman Sachs entities together acquired 89.67 lakh shares for about ₹105.57 crore, and Tata AIA Life Insurance Company bought 33.97 lakh shares for ₹40 crore.

Other buyers included Morgan Stanley, Societe Generale, Citigroup Global Markets, Viridian Asset Management, Ghisallo Capital Management, Mediolanum International Funds and New York State Teachers Retirement System.

Finland-based financial services company OP Pohjola and Swiss private bank J Safra Sarasin also picked up shares in the transaction.

The stake sale occurred shortly after the edtech firm reported an improvement in its bottom line.

Earlier this month, PhysicsWallah reported a narrowing of consolidated net loss to ₹77.57 crore for the June quarter, supported by growth across its online and offline learning verticals.

The company had posted a net loss of ₹120.45 crore in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal year, according to a regulatory filing.

Its consolidated revenue from operations in the first quarter of the current fiscal year rose 24.4% to ₹1,053.95 crore from ₹847.09 crore in the year-ago period.