India edtech player UpGrad raises $210m
UpGrad, an India-based education technology company set up by media maven Ronnie Screwvala, has raised USD 210m featuring Temasek Holdings and education-focused private equity firm Kaizen.
Screwvala is best known as a film producer and the founder of Bollywood studio UTV Group, now part of Disney India.
IIFL Group, International Finance Corporation (IFC), and edtech provider ETS Global also invested, as did family offices associated with telecoms giant Bharti Airtel, industrials tycoon Narotam Sekhsaria, and steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal.
They were joined by Bodhi Tree, an investment platform recently launched by James Murdoch and Uday Shankar with support from Qatar Investment Authority. Murdoch is the CEO and founder of US-based Lupa Systems, an active investor in India, and the son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Shankar is a former president of Disney Asia Pacific.
UpGrad achieved a valuation of USD 1.2bn last year when it received a USD 185m investment from Temasek, IFC, and IIFL. They contributed USD 120m, USD 40m, and USD 25m to the deal, respectively. Unilazer Ventures, Screwvala’s family office, separately provided USD 9.4m last year.
UpGrad specialises in professional training and higher education, especially in areas related to data analytics, data science, artificial intelligence, and data-driven marketing. It has a user base of 3m individuals and 1,000 companies across more than 100 countries, as well as some 300 university partners.
The company claims to be on track for annual gross revenue of USD 400m-USD 500m for the 2023 financial year, 45% of which will be realised from its own-branded online courses and programs. The program completion rate is said to be more than 80%, with 40% of revenue coming from repeat customers and referrals.
The plan is to create one of the largest full-time edtech faculties in the world. The fresh capital will be used to grow the size of the team from 4,800 to 7,600, including 1,600 teachers and 5,000 on-contract coaches and mentors, in the next three months.
“Higher edtech will be on the rise for the next four to five decades,” Screwvala and fellow UpGrad co-founder Mayank Kumar said in a joint statement. “We have always been very capital efficient while growing 100% year-on-year and hope to retain that discipline."
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