Ronnie Screwvala’s upGrad is in advance talks to acquire a test-prep company Exampur for an estimated deal value of Rs. 100 crores to Rs 250 crores, according to three sources, who spoke to BusinessLine on the condition of anonymity.  

One of the people quoted above said that upGrad has already informed employees about the merger in a company townhall on May 19. The edtech unicorn has also asked some employees in its test prep vertical, upGrad Jeet, to shift from Bangalore to Noida and the deal is expected to close between June 10 to June 20, 2022.

“Out of these employees who could not shift to Noida were asked to resign, this has affected 20-25 employees. In case people did not resign, they were told that HR will send them Ask to Leave (ATL) letters,” the source added. When an employee is given Ask to Leave (ATL) letters, the notice period is waived off or adjusted, and relieving letter mentions that the employee was asked to leave. 

A fourth person added that Noida-based Exampur has been on the lookout for an acquisition deal since 2021, due to a lack of funds. On the other hand, upGrad Jeet has been looking for ways to grow its user base organically, which is something companies like Exampur, Adda247, and Physicswallah have been able to achieve.

“Around November 2021, upGrad realised that test prep business has a high customer acquisition cost(CAC) and will require substantial investment and time to become profitable. Even though upGrad Jeet was growing at 100 per cent month on month, the company did not want to continue burning money in this vertical for 5 odd years to become sustainable. This is when upGrad started exploring acquisition of a company like Exampur,” a former employee told BusinessLine.

Exampur’s co-founder Vardaan Gandhi has denied any acquisition talks and said he is not aware of upGrad Jeet team being shifted to Noida. upGrad did not respond to BusinessLine queries till the time of press.

Founded in 2018, Exampur offers about 200 preparation courses for government job exams like UP Lekhpal, SBI PO, SBI Clerk, RBI Assistant, Indian Navy, and Indian Economic Service among others. upGrad Jeet also offers similar preparation courses for government job exams. 

The average price of Exampur courses ranges from Rs 999 to Rs 4999 and the videos/curriculum are mostly in Hindi. Currently, Exampur’s main Youtube channel (Examपुर) has 7.23 million subscribers, Examपुर Defence Warriors has 1.08 million subscribers and the other 23 channels have an average of 234K subscribers.

This is not the first acquisition of upGrad, the edtech unicorn has also acquired companies like Impartus Innovations, KnowledgeHut, Talentedge, Work Better Training, and Global Study Partners, among other. The most recent ​​one is the acquisition of a data science institute, the International School of Engineering (Insofe) in a $33 million share swap deal.

In financial year 2021, upGrad filed a consolidated revenue of Rs 302.26 crore, and net loss of Rs 211 crore. The January to March quarter of FY 22 was reported to be profitable for upGrad and the company had expected to bring down its losses to Rs. 150 crore in FY 22. upGrad was valued at $1.2 billion in August 2021, when it raised a $185 million funding round from Temasek Holdings, International Finance Corp, and IIFL Group.

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