A few months ago, posters appeared across the national capital, advertising the Delhi government’s new scheme for 16- to 35-year-old residents. It wasn’t about free electricity, water, subsidised rations, or a new anti-corruption helpline. They were promotions for the launch of a new state-sponsored English-speaking course. Reminiscent of the days when Rapidex was the holy grail for Indians yearning to learn the language, the posters read: “Are you struggling at work because you can’t speak fluent English?” “Have you missed many opportunities because you can’t speak English?”
Many Indians gauge someone’s literacy by their proficiency in English. Others perceive it as a passport to better professional opportunities. And there is a huge market of English learners not just in metropolitan cities but more so in India’s smaller towns and villages. But what if one were to turn that paradigm around? Why not tap into this massive customer base of non-English speakers by selling them cutting-edge professional and upskilling courses in their own language? That is what one Tamil Nadu-based startup is doing. Called Grab Your Vernacular Imprint (GUVI), it aims to teach key coding skills that are in high demand across the world in various vernacular languages, including Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu. For as little as a few hundred to some thousands of rupees, people with no knowledge of English can learn coding languages like Python, C++, and Java, courses on cyber security, data science, and even software testing and automation. In the few years of its existence, it has managed to onboard almost two million learners—half of whom were acquired in 2022. Sensing a potential goldmine, Shiv Nadar’s HCL acquired a controlling stake in GUVI in 2022. So, has GUVI finally cracked the code of this high-volume-low-margin market of vernacular IT skill seekers?
