Before we begin
Two houses. One ambition.
K2 Learning and Learning Edge India Pvt. Ltd. come together to grow India's happiest preschool.
Joint venture partner
K2 Learning
Little Elly's parent company
Learning Edge
Scroll to continue
What the two houses hold
Everything already built.
Joint venture partner
An education group spanning schools, pre-university and career IPs.
Little Elly's parent company
Learning Edge India Pvt. Ltd. — the house Little Elly calls home, alongside three sister brands.
The invisibleasset.
Twenty years of doing it the hard way — so you don't have to.
The invisible asset · six moments
We started.
Twenty years ago, there was no roadmap. Just a room, a few filled seats, and a conviction.
We learned it the hard way.
Wrong sites, wrong hires, wrong assumptions — each one paid for once, and each one now a rule in the operating system you receive.
We rebuilt.
Rewrote the curriculum. Then rewrote it again. And again, until children led it.
We listened.
Every classroom taught us something a spreadsheet couldn't. So we measured both.
It became a way.
172 centres later, it isn't luck. It's a method — repeatable, teachable, proven.
Now, the gift.
The hardest part is already built. A Master Franchise partner starts from there, not from zero.
And the gift has a name
Master Franchise PartnershipOur family is growing.
An invitation to belong. An opportunity to build together.
India's Most Admired Preschool
The sector
The opportunity!
India's preschool and childcare market is one of the few consumer categories growing at near double digits, year after year, through every cycle.
$0.0B
Market size, 2025
India pre-school / childcare market
IMARC Group, 2026
$0B
Projected by 2034
More than double, in under a decade
IMARC Group, 2026
0.0%
CAGR 2026–2034
Independent estimates run 9.2%–10.5%
IMARC / Expert Market Research
Who runs the market today
Out of every 100 preschools operating in India, only a handful carry a national brand and a common system.
Branded, system-run centres
Independent, unbranded centres
The competition is fragmentation itself — which is exactly what an operating system, not a single school, is built to consolidate.
Indicative industry estimate of branded penetration in organised early-years supply.
The tailwind
India's child population remains significant. The opportunity is evolving.
Seven structural forces, none of them a trend. Tap a force to open it.
Why India is a great place to build a preschool business
3.5 crore
That is the government's own count of young children it reaches — a floor, not a ceiling. Every year replenishes the cohort. This is a business whose customer is born, not converted.
Ministry of Women & Child Development (ICDS)
Andhra Pradesh
4.96 cr
People in Andhra Pradesh
A large, young consumer market on your doorstep.
Census 2011
52 lakh
Children aged 0–6
The cohort that walks into a preschool, refreshed every year.
Census 2011
29%
Urban population share
Urban families are the ones who buy structured early years.
Census 2011
Source: Census of India 2011.
The model
Why a System wins in a Fragmented Market
The sector's structure is the opportunity: private money already runs it, and almost nobody runs it well at scale.
Privately owned
The category is overwhelmingly private. There is no incumbent monopoly to displace — only unbranded operators to out-run.
IMARC Group, 2026
Full day care
The bigger half of the market is the higher-value one — longer hours, deeper parent relationship, better unit economics.
IMARC Group, 2026
Fees come first
Two to three year customers
Asset-light footprint
Unit economics — investment, fee bands, break-even and territory returns — are covered in the next section with real Little Elly numbers.
The association
You don't buy a centre. You own a territory.
One scale of association: an entire state, yours to build out.
State
A whole state to build out
One-time association fee
Your own model school
Marketing from the company
Five-year term
Four terms. One map: your state.
Who we're looking for
A passion for education
Entrepreneurial drive
A local network
A plan for the territory
The fine print, in plain words
Five years, then renewal on mutual terms
You pick the state you know best
You fill it in five years — with our help
You earn on every new franchisee signed and every new admission
Brand standards protect everyone in the family
What it takes
What a master franchise partner brings.
Straightforward, and far less than most people expect.
One centre.
Then a territory of them.
Approvals
- Local licences and compliances vary by state — budgeted in pre-opening costs
- Every site is approved by us within ten working days of submission
- We represent the brand before education and regulatory authorities
Setup essentials
- A model centre of your own, set up to brand standard
- Territory office: interiors, furniture and IT
- Franchise kit and operating resources, supplied by us at cost
- Study kits, workbooks and uniforms come straight from us to each centre
- Travel and stay for our trainers when they visit your territory
Financial
- One-time Master Franchisee fee for the five-year term
- Model centre, territory office and launch marketing
- Refundable security deposit and office advance
- Working capital for the first operating season
Figures are set out in the commercials, and confirmed for your territory in the definitive agreement.
What we carry
You carry four things. We carry the rest.
Nineteen obligations sit with us. Four sit with you. Switch between the two.
You carry — 4
Four responsibilities stay with the Master Franchisee.
Find the franchisees
Meet, shortlist and sign the right people in your state.
Open their centres
Site, setup and launch, with our approvals behind you.
Mentor them
Be the first call when a centre needs a hand.
Implement the SOPs
We write and update the SOPs. Ensuring every unit franchisee implements and upholds them on the ground is the Master Franchise's responsibility.
We carry — 19
Nineteen obligations the Franchisor owes the Master Franchise under the Master Franchise Agreement. We write and update every SOP; implementation on the ground sits with the Master Franchise.
Academics
4No academic risk on you.
- 01Curriculum, kept current
- 02All teacher training
- 03Competency standards
- 04Fee & admission policy
Systems
5Built, hosted, maintained.
- 05MIS & CRM
- 06Parent app
- 07Franchisee portal
- 08National IVR
- 09Operations manual
Brand
5Demand before you ask.
- 10National campaigns
- 11Leads routed to you
- 12First-year launch push
- 13Collateral, refreshed
- 14We face authorities
Quality
5One weak centre stays contained.
- 15Annual audit per centre
- 16Common scorecard
- 17Power to pause admissions
- 18We vet every franchisee
- 19Site approval in 10 days
You carry 4. We carry 19.
The grant
Three rights, inside one boundary.
01
Your state, exclusively
The exclusive right to own, operate and manage Little Elly preschools across your Territory.
02
You appoint the franchisees
The right to appoint Unit Franchisees within the Territory — the network is yours to build.
03
The marks and the System
Full licence to the Little Elly marks and the Little Elly System for the term of the Agreement.
Exclusivity operates within your Territory. Outside it, the Franchisor may license the brand elsewhere in India and internationally.
Where you have a voice
Four things we don't decide alone.
Fee revisions
Annual fee revisions for your Territory are approved in collaboration with you.
Policy changes
Administrative policies are discussed with you before they roll out across the Territory.
Performance targets
The Minimum Performance Commitment is co-developed, then reviewed together.
Escalation
Anything you can't settle locally comes to us on a full briefing, and is resolved.
Term and continuity
Year 0
Effective date
The five-year term begins.
Years 1–4
You build the state
Centres open, brand fees compound.
Year 4.75
Renewal notice
Three months out, on a clean record.
Year 5
Renew, or hand over
Deposit refunded; a successor may be referred.
A summary only. The Master Franchise Agreement governs in all respects.
A life, not a job
What a master franchise partner actually does.
Twelve scenes from an ordinary week — the real texture of the role.
Opens his own centre first
Before he sells a single franchise, he runs one. The model school is his proof, his training ground and his cash flow — the room he can walk any prospect through.
Takes the 10am call
A franchisee two towns away has had a slow admissions week. Fifteen minutes on the phone, a look at her enquiry register, and the panic turns into a plan.
Guides, never scolds
He sits beside his franchisee, not across from her. Two suggestions, one deadline, a follow-up date in the diary. That is the whole management style.
Reads his own books
Sunday morning, one sheet. Fees collected, royalty share received, salaries out, next month's pipeline. A business he can hold in his head.
Drives out to a centre
An hour on the highway with a coffee. He walks the classrooms, greets the teachers by name, listens to two parents at the gate — and leaves with a punch list.
Hosts the training batch
New teachers from three centres, one room, the Little Elly way. He organises and hosts; the company brings the curriculum and the trainers.
Settles a quiet dispute
Two of his franchisees are chasing the same apartment complex. He redraws the catchment on a map, both keep their dignity, and the territory stays a family.
Coffee with a maybe
A friend's wife has been thinking about a preschool for two years. No pitch deck — just a cappuccino, honest numbers, and an invitation to visit his centre.
Thursday at the club
BNI, Rotary, the builders' association. Rooms full of people with capital and time, quietly looking for a business they would be proud to name at dinner.
Signs a franchisee
Number seven in his territory. One signature, one fee share, and a school that will pay him every month for the next five years.
Stands at an annual day
Three hundred parents, a stage, small children who are not nervous. Nobody in the hall knows the word franchise. They just know the school is his.
Sleeps on a growing map
Every centre he opened keeps running long after the opening ribbon. The territory compounds while he is asleep — that is the difference.
He isn't running a school. He's building a network.
“H.A.P.P.Y.” is a curriculum for our children. It’s a framework for our partners.
The same thinking, pointed at your business.
A brand you don’t have to build
Marketing that fills your centres
Training for you and your team
A curriculum already proven
Investment and unit-economics guidance
An operations team on call
Structured support at every level of the business.