Scaler Academy, an edtech upskilling platform, has acquired online learning platform Coding Minutes for $1 million (approximately ₹7.48 crores) in an all-cash dea.

This is the second acquisition for the edtech startup after acquiring Coding Elements in August, the transaction value of which was not disclosed. In an earlier conversation with BusinessLine , Abhimanyu Saxena, Co-Founder, Scaler Academy, whose flagship product is InterviewBit had noted that the company plans to make a couple of acquisitions this year and has set aside more than $20 million for the same.

Beginner courses

Bootstrapped by Prateek Narang and Mohit Uniyal, Coding Minutes was started in early 2021 and, within 4 months of launch, says it has enrolled more than 20,000 learners from 120 countries across their varied courses. Coding Minutes was started with a vision to bring a first-class digital learning experience for young coders at an affordable price point.

The platform offers short duration courses that cover critical concepts across data structures, algorithms, programming languages like Python, C++, Java, version control systems, data science, machine learning and competitive programming.

“One of the things about our journey has been that we have to turn down 70 per cent of the people who were applying to Scaler. The reason for this was that we were only running the courses for people with an intermediate level of skills. But given the massive talent crunch in the ecosystem, there is also a need for reskilling for people who either want to switch careers or are studying. We felt Coding Minutes can add value in teaching people in the zero to one level,” Saxena told BusinessLine .

Support to Tier 3 cities

From next month on, Scaler will formally start intake of people in the beginner level. The team will also be working on creating extremely affordable or free content for wider distribution. Coding Minutes offers pre-recorded courses along with doubt support. The company onboards teaching assistants to give doubt support to the learners for a ₹5000 to ₹10,000 fee. According to Narang, Coding Minutes pays 20 per cent to 30 per cent of the company revenue to such teaching assistants. Further, the four mentors who record the lectures also earn a monthly recurring revenue out of the course sales.

With Scaler, Coding Minutes hope to strengthen its hiring pipeline because a lot of students on the platform who come from Tier 3 cities do not get many employment opportunities. 70 per cent of the learners on Coding Minutes are said to be from India. Coding Minutes has recorded 6 million minutes watch time across all their courses. The e-learning platform is also projected to hit an ARRR (annual revenue run rate) of ₹1 crore in the current financial year.

Also see: Scaler earmarks ₹100 crore marketing spend for 2022

Coding Minutes will become a part of Scaler and will continue to bring pocket-friendly specialised courses for beginners as part of the acquisition. Prateek Narang has joined as the Engineering Lead & Instructor for Scaler Academy and Mohit Uniyal has joined as the Instructor for Scaler Data Science & ML Program.

Narang added, “When we launched Coding Minutes, our vision was quite similar to Scaler. We wanted to empower the masses with industry-ready tech skills without spending heavily on educational degrees. Both Mohit and I strongly believe that after this acquisition, we can add more value to students’ lives and help them crack great opportunities given Scaler’s strong industry connect. Together we can accelerate the pace at which Indian engineers and techies contribute to the larger global technology ecosystem.”

Upskilling platform

Launched in 2019, Scaler Academy is an upskilling platform for tech enthusiasts and raised $20 million in Series A Funding led by marquee investors such as Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global and Rocket Internet among others in January 2020.

Also see: Scaler Academy launches subscription-based upskilling programme

To expand its offerings, the company have recently introduced the data science & machine learning program and a subscription-based lifelong career accelerator named Forever. Today, Scaler has over 650 employees and 1,000+ mentors andteaching assistants on the platform to bridge the tech talent gap in India. So far, more than 8,500 learners have joined Scaler’s educational programs.

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