About Vawsum
Vawsum Schools Pvt. Ltd. is a Kolkata-based education technology company serving more than 1,000 schools and colleges across India. We build the software that runs an institution - admissions to transfer certificate - and we build it for Indian schools rather than adapting something designed elsewhere.
Talk to us
It started with a parent
Vawsum began with a parent rather than a business plan. In 2016 Aditya Maheswari was six years into a career at Hindustan Unilever and expecting his first child, Virat. Like any parent, he wanted to be part of the small daily moments of his son growing up, and he assumed technology would help him stay close to them. It did not, because it did not exist. Parent-teacher engagement was an unheard-of concept in Indian schools at the time. Where applications of that kind existed at all, they existed abroad, in markets that worked very differently. School software in India meant something else entirely: automating routine back-office operations - admission registers, fee ledgers, salary sheets, stock books. It was built for the school as an institution. Not for the child, not for the parent, not for the teacher. That was the thing worth changing. Vawsum started as a communication app - one place where a teacher could share what had happened in class and a parent could actually see it. In 2016 that was a strange thing to sell to an Indian school. Schools took to it, and then they began asking for more. If you can handle communication, can you handle fees? Attendance? Marksheets? The ERP, the learning management system, the safety tools and the admissions software all came afterwards, each one because a school that already trusted us asked for it. That order matters more than it sounds. Most school ERPs are built as administrative systems with a parent app added later, which is why so many parent apps feel like an afterthought. Vawsum was built the other way round: the parent and teacher experience came first, and the administration was built to serve it. It is why the app is shaped like the social apps families already know how to use, why it stays hardware-free and modular rather than demanding a procurement cycle, and why adoption tends not to be the problem it usually is.
The company
Registered in Kolkata in 2016, operating pan-India
| Legal name | Vawsum Schools Pvt. Ltd. |
| CIN | U74999WB2016PTC215728 |
| Registered office | 24, Hemanta Basu Sarani, 1st Floor, Mangalam Building, Block-A, Kolkata 700 001 |
| Sector | Education technology – school and college management software |
| Institutions served | 1,000+ across India, with 250+ concentrated in West Bengal, Sikkim, Assam and Nagaland |
| Boards covered | CISCE, CBSE and West Bengal state board, across English, Hindi and Bengali medium institutions |
| Product pillars | ERP, Connect, Scholar, Secure+ and Growth |
Part of a group that is fifty years old
Vawsum is the technology arm of a Kolkata group with roots in chartered accountancy, manufacturing and government consulting
This matters more than it might appear. Schools hand an ERP vendor their fee ledger, their student records and their staff payroll, and they are entitled to ask whether that vendor will still exist in five years. Vawsum is not a standalone venture – it sits inside a group that has been operating in Kolkata for roughly five decades.
| Company | Field | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Agarwal Maheswari & Co | Chartered accountancy, ~4 decades | Clients across FMCG, jute, steel, NBFC, realty and pharma |
| MB Enterprises | Manufacturing, ~3 decades | Manufacture and export of industrial safety equipment |
| Optimix Consultancy Pvt Ltd | Consulting and projects, ~2 decades | Awarded by the Government of India for “Zero Defects” in the Aadhaar roll-out |
| Vawsum Schools Pvt Ltd | Education technology, pan-India | School and college ERP, engagement app and digital learning |
The accountancy practice is the part school finance officers tend to appreciate. Fee structures, concessions, defaulter handling and audit-ready reporting were designed by people who have spent decades reading books rather than only writing software.
The founding team
Supported by a team of engineers and MBAs from the IITs and IIMs
Aditya Maheswari
Co-Founder and CEO – Business Strategy and Finance
- Economics Honours, Presidency University, Kolkata
- MBA, Faculty of Management Studies (FMS) Delhi
- CFA (USA)
- 6+ years with Hindustan Unilever, handling the Lakme and tea procurement portfolios
- 9+ years in education technology
- Alumnus of Calcutta Boys’ School
Gagan Maheshwari
Co-Founder – Technology
- B.E., Birla Institute of Technology, Ranchi
- 15+ years with HP, Infosys and Samsung
- Experience across healthcare, internet banking and railway projects
- 9+ years in education technology
- Schooled at Lincolns High School and BSF Senior Secondary Residential School, Siliguri
The team behind them
Vawsum is built and supported by a team of engineers and MBAs drawn from the IITs and IIMs, working across product, implementation and support.
The internet banking background matters for a product that moves school fees. The person who built Vawsum’s security architecture previously built internet banking systems for a nationalised bank.
Recognition
Awarded by central government bodies, industry chambers and academic institutions
- Best Startup Award presented by the Chief Minister of Maharashtra and the Speaker of the Lok Sabha (2019)
- Best Startup Award for Interactive Digital Learning, Department of Telecommunications, Government of India (2019)
- Innovation Showcase of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India (2018)
- Selected by NITI Aayog to meet the visiting French delegation (2018)
- Best Education Startup Award, Indian Chamber of Commerce (2019)
- Best Startup Award, Confederation of Indian Industry (2019)
- National Finalists, Social Venture Competition by Tata and IIM Calcutta (2019)
- Seed funding of INR 20 lakh from the NALCO Centre of Excellence for Technology Entrepreneurship (2019)
Vawsum has also been covered by national media including Times Now and Dainik Bhaskar.
Presentation makes all the difference
The belief underneath the product, and the reason it looks the way it does
There is a passage in Mark Twain that we come back to often. Tom Sawyer is punished by his Aunt Polly and told to whitewash a long stretch of fence. Rather than complain, he presents the job as a privilege – and ends up selling his friends the chance to do it for him.
What is work and what is play turns out to be a state of mind. Presentation makes all the difference.
That is not a marketing observation, it is the design principle behind the product. Parents and students already spend hours every day on Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, and they are fluent in that format without anyone training them. So we asked a simple question: what if school updates arrived in the same format? What if a teacher sharing today’s classwork looked less like a circular and more like something a parent would actually open?
That is why the home screen of the Vawsum app looks like a feed rather than a dashboard. It is why there is a thumbs-up under a teacher’s post, and why a quiz sent to a class can feel like a game show at the dinner table rather than an assignment. It is also why our onboarding works: nobody has to be taught an interface they already know.
The same thinking runs through the administrative side. Attendance is still taken by a teacher who was in the room and knows who was missing – we only replaced the register with a phone, and added a notification to the parent at the moment it is marked. We call that approach phygital: keep what works about the physical method, add what only a digital one can do. Good software does not ask people to work differently. It asks them to work the same way, with less friction and a better result at the end of it.
Why the company is called Vawsum
Vawsum stands for Very Awesome. That is not wordplay for its own sake – it is a standard we set ourselves deliberately.
Most organisations climb a ladder that runs good, better, best. Our view is that the ladder has one more rung on it, and that stopping at the top of the usual one is how software ends up merely adequate: it works, nobody loves it, and it quietly falls out of use. We are not interested in building something a school tolerates. A teacher should not merely accept the app, and a parent should not merely receive the update.
It is also why the appreciation button inside the app says Vawsum rather than like. When a parent taps it under a teacher’s post, they are not registering mild approval. They are saying it was very awesome – and after a long day, a teacher seeing that from twenty families is worth rather more than a number going up.
What we hold to
The five commitments that shape what we will and will not build
Frequently asked questions
About the company, the team and how we work
1. Who founded Vawsum and when?
Vawsum Schools Pvt. Ltd. was founded in 2016 by Aditya Maheswari, who leads business strategy and finance, and Gagan Maheshwari, who leads technology. Aditya read Economics at Presidency University Kolkata, holds an MBA from FMS Delhi and a CFA (USA), and spent six years at Hindustan Unilever. Gagan is an engineer from Birla Institute of Technology, Ranchi, with fifteen years at HP, Infosys and Samsung.
2. How did Vawsum start?
It started as a parent’s problem. In 2016 co-founder Aditya Maheswari was working at Hindustan Unilever and expecting his first child. Looking for a way to stay close to the daily moments of his son’s school life, he found nothing existed. Parent-teacher engagement was an unheard-of concept in India then; such applications existed only abroad. School software in India meant automating back-office operations – registers, fee ledgers, salary sheets – built for the school as an institution rather than for the child, the parent or the teacher. Vawsum launched as a communication app to change that. Schools that adopted it then asked for fees, attendance and marksheets, and the ERP, learning management, safety and admissions products followed – each one because an existing client asked for it.
3. Where is Vawsum based?
The registered office is at 24, Hemanta Basu Sarani, 1st Floor, Mangalam Building, Block-A, Kolkata 700 001. The company operates pan-India, with the strongest concentration of institutions in West Bengal, Sikkim, Assam and Nagaland.
4. How many schools use Vawsum?
More than 1,000 schools and colleges across India, including over 250 in West Bengal, Sikkim, Assam and Nagaland. Clients range from single-campus schools to groups such as JIS, Julien Day, Bandhan, BDMI, Holy Christ, Scottish Church Collegiate and LMET International.
5. Is Vawsum an Indian company?
Yes. Vawsum is registered in Kolkata under CIN U74999WB2016PTC215728 and the product is built for Indian institutions rather than adapted from software designed for another market. That shows in NEP-compliant report cards, CISCE and CBSE templates, fee structures that match Indian collection practice, and a helpdesk operating in English, Hindi and Bengali.
6. What group is Vawsum part of?
Vawsum is the education technology arm of a Kolkata group operating for roughly fifty years. The group includes Agarwal Maheswari & Co, a chartered accountancy firm of around four decades; MB Enterprises, an industrial safety manufacturer of around three decades; and Optimix Consultancy Pvt Ltd, a consulting firm of around two decades that was recognised by the Government of India for zero defects in the Aadhaar roll-out.
7. What awards has Vawsum received?
Vawsum received the Best Startup Award presented by the Chief Minister of Maharashtra and the Speaker of the Lok Sabha in 2019, and the Best Startup Award for Interactive Digital Learning from the Department of Telecommunications, Government of India, in the same year. It was selected for the Innovation Showcase of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India in 2018 and by NITI Aayog to meet a visiting French delegation. It was also recognised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce and the Confederation of Indian Industry, and was a national finalist in the Social Venture Competition run by Tata and IIM Calcutta.
8. What does Vawsum actually sell?
Five product pillars. ERP runs the institution from admission to transfer certificate. Connect handles parent and teacher communication. Scholar covers digital learning and live classes. Secure+ covers student safety, attendance and gate passes. Growth covers admissions and lead management. Each works independently, so an institution can take one or all five.
9. Do we have to buy hardware to use Vawsum?
No. The platform is hardware-free by default and runs from phones and browsers. Where a school already owns biometric machines, RFID readers, payment terminals or bus tracking units, Vawsum works with that equipment rather than asking for it to be replaced.
10. How is Vawsum priced?
Installation, training and subscription are agreed in discussion and scaled to student strength, with GST at 18%. There is no single published price because a two-module deployment at a school of four hundred and a full ERP at a group of six campuses are not comparable. Contract duration and payment terms are also agreed rather than fixed.
11. What does the name Vawsum mean?
Vawsum stands for Very Awesome. It is a standard rather than wordplay – the usual ladder runs good, better, best, and our view is that it has one more rung on it. Stopping short is how software ends up merely adequate: it works, nobody loves it, and it quietly falls out of use. It is also why the appreciation button in the app says Vawsum rather than like – a parent tapping it under a teacher’s post is saying the work was very awesome, not registering mild approval.
12. Why does the Vawsum app look like a social feed?
Because parents and students already know how to use one. They spend hours a day on Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram and need no training for any of it. School updates arriving in that same familiar format get opened and read, where a circular often does not. Presentation makes all the difference – which is why the home screen is a feed rather than a dashboard, and why adoption is rarely the problem it usually is with school software.
13. What support does an institution get?
A multilingual helpdesk in English, Hindi and Bengali, training customised for each stakeholder group, checklists and sign-off sheets so nothing is missed during configuration, public FAQs, articles and videos, and regular refresher webinars.