Edtech upGrad has announced a fresh round of fundraise from marquee investors and Family Offices who join the company cap-table. This round witnessed the participation from ETS, Bodhi Tree (a joint venture of James Murdoch and Uday Shankar), Singapore's Kaizen Management Advisors, the family office of Bharti Airtel and Narotam Sekhsaria of Ambuja Cements and ACC as well as Artian Investments along with existing investors Temasek, IFC and IIFL.
The founder group also invested $12.5 million in this round to maintain their over 50 per cent ownership in upGrad.
“There is a massive re-skilling revolution taking place around the world and over the last five years our 4800+ colleagues have worked hard and smart to be at the epicenter of taking advantage of this, not just in India but around the world. Higher edtech will be on the rise for the next four to five decades. We have always been very capital efficient while growing 100 per cent year-on-year and hope to retain that discipline,” said upGrad co-founders, Ronnie Screwvala and Mayank Kumar in a joint statement while commenting on the fund raise.
ETS Strategic Capital Managing Director Ralph Taylor-Smith stated, “India continues to be a priority country for ETS, and we are dedicated to strategically increasing our footprint in this key market. Our partnership with upGrad will help to advance our shared mission of providing educational opportunities for all learners, in the South Asia region and around the globe.”
upGrad plans to scale up its team strength to 7600 from the present 4800 within three months. This will include about 170 full-time faculty, 1600 teachers, and over 5000 on-contract coaches and mentors.
Bucking the slowdown trend within the sector, the start-up is bullish with its 80 per cent programme completion rate in the higher education segment. 40 per cent of its total revenue is realised from repeats and referrals year-on-year.