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

New Delhi: Venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners exited PhysicsWallah by selling its entire 1.61 per cent stake in the edtech company for nearly Rs 550 crore through a block deal on the NSE.

After the stake sale, PhysicsWallah shares fell nearly 1 per cent to Rs 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 per cent stake in Noida-based PhysicsWallah.

The transaction was executed on Wednesday at an average price of Rs 117.72 per share, totalling Rs 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 per cent stake, for Rs 258.98 crore.

Five Goldman Sachs entities together acquired 89.67 lakh shares for about Rs 105.57 crore, and Tata AIA Life Insurance Company bought 33.97 lakh shares for Rs 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 Rs 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 Rs 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 per cent to Rs 1,053.95 crore from Rs 847.09 crore in the year-ago period.

(Disclaimer: Except for the headline, this article has not been edited by HDFC Sky editorial team and is auto-generated from PTI feed.)