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upGrad, the higher edtech major, has announced a $210-million fund-raise from marquee investors and Family Offices, who join the company’s cap-table.
The round saw participation from ETS Global (the world’s largest TOEFL & GRE test leader), Bodhi Tree (a joint venture of James Murdoch and Uday Shankar), Singapore’s Kaizen Management Advisors Pvt. Ltd, Bharti Airtel family office, Narotam Sekhsaria family office (Ambuja Cements and ACC), and Artisan Investments (family office of Lakshmi Mittal - ArcelorMittal), along with existing investors Temasek, IFC and IIFL.
The founder group invested $12.5 million in the round to maintain its over 50 per cent ownership in the company.
“We welcome our new investors and industry veterans to the upGrad cap table. There is a massive Re-skilling Revolution taking place around the world and over the last five years 4,800+ colleagues have worked hard and smart to take 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. upGrad, in the last 12 months, has re-shaped itself to be the most integrated company in this space, with career opportunities for college learners and working professionals from the age of 18 to 58, and will be a LifeLongLearning partner for millions in the coming years. We have always been 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.
The upGrad team strength will grow from 4,800 currently to to 7,600 in the next three months, and will include about 170 full-time faculty, 1,600 teachers, and over 5,000 on-contract coaches and mentors, thereby, building one of the largest full-time edtech faculties in the world.
Bucking the slowdown in the sector, upGrad has remained bullish with its programme completion rate of 80 per cent and has emerged a global leader in the higher education segment. 40 per cent of the company’s total revenue is realised from Repeats and Referrals year-on-year.
upGrad is on track to record annual gross revenue of $400-500 million during FY23, of which about 45 per cent will be realised from its own branded online courses and programmes.
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