A Woman Who Shapes Infancy

Early nine years ago in Whitefield, Bengaluru, a woman named Priya Krishnan established her first daycare centre under Founding Years Learning Solutions, to ensure that the child is intellectually stimulated and physically active. Being a mother of two boys, Krishnan had first-hand experience in quality childcare. She wanted to start a daycare chain that would help mothers get back to work without dealing with stress and guilt. 

Today Founding Years Learning Solutions, the parent company of KLAY Schools and The Little Company, operates 80 centres from across seven cities in India. Krishnan is an MBA from the London Business School and began her career with Anderson Consulting. She worked in various leadership positions with Mphasis and Bangalore Labs across Singapore, New York, London and India. Her entrepreneurial journey began as CEO of Founding Years Learning Solutions.  

Krishnan’s daycare has established a successful chain of pre-schools and centres under two brand names, KLAY (B2C model) and The Little Company (B2B model). The B2B model works in two different ways –  onsite and offsite. The onsite model requires a centre to be set up at the office premises of  the corporate client. When space is unavailable at the premises of the client, an offsite centre is set up nearby to cater to multiple corporate clients. 

A key issue for Krishnan was managing the scale of operations while maintaining the same quality standards across 150 centres. Later, she understood that continuous training is a critical investment KLAY needs to make while encouraging the concept of Freedom to Flub across levels. Krishnan believes that “Every individual is given the freedom to make mistakes and internalise the learning while ensuring quality delivery of care.” This helped create an empowered set of women in every centre passionate about ensuring quality and making a difference. Technology adoption helped ensure that good quality training. 

While the company expands in tier-1 cities, KLAY has introduced Creche in the box, an aggregator format of corporate child care services to cater to the huge demand in tier - 2 and tier - 3 cities. Creche in the box will help provide quality child care through tie-ups with quality providers, by sharing curriculum and audit services with them, thereby simplifying the process of working with one partner for the corporate. 

Founding Years Learning Solutions did not make a profit till 2019, when it earned a revenue of Rs 130 crore. Krishnan aims for a significant growth in earnings of Rs 200 crore this year. She expects her company to continue to grow by over 50 per cent year-on-year.