upGrad- a leading ed-tech giant with its headquarters located in Mumbai has officially announced the launch of ‘UpGrad AI Incubator’ which is an initiative specifically designed to support Indian AI startups in various niches including education, skill development, and workforce training.
As a part of this strategic initiative, upGrad has allocated INR 100 crore as seed funding and also provided Indian AI startups with the relevant resources and infrastructure to attain innovative and industry-focused solutions. In the upcoming months, upGrad plans to invest in a group of 5-6 AI startups through its incubator program with the collective aim of supporting innovative solutions enabling the transformation of the education sector. By taking a minority stake in these startups, upGrad will provide strategic investment and guidance to fuel their growth while allowing them to maintain their independence and operational flexibility.
Founder’s statement on this strategic Move
Ronnie Screwvala, Co-founder and Chairperson of upGrad stated, ” In today’s rapidly changing digital presence, AI has become an essential skillset for individuals as well as businesses. With the upGrad AI Incubator, we aim to authorize India’s talent pool to become a driving force for innovation and represent our nation at the forefront of global growth. By providing a platform for AI startups to innovate, experiment, and grow, we are committed to promoting a vibrant ecosystem that will accelerate India’s growth to remarkable heights.”
Promoting Indian Startups like ZuAI to Drive Innovation
The launch of upGrad’s AI Incubator highlights the progression of its recent collaborations with industry leaders and government bodies, focused on promoting over a million learners with AI skills and establishing AI Centres of Excellence pan India. This mindful initiative underlines upGrad’s dedication to driving growth and innovation in AI education in India. As part of its first investment under the incubator, upGrad has invested in ‘ZuAI’, a Bengaluru-based startup that offers 24/7 AI-powered personal tutors for students. However, the financial terms of the deal remain undisclosed.
upGrad Partners with Maharashtra Government
A few days ago, the company signed an agreement with the Maharashtra government to establish AI excellence centers across the state, with an initial investment of INR 2,150 Crore. In another significant partnership, Neeraj Gera, former COO of Dentsu, has joined the company as the India head for enterprise delivery, while Neha Prasad Mullick, a former Amazon executive, has been appointed as the vice president for enterprise sales in North America.
About upGrad
Founded in the year 2015 by Ronnie Screwvala, Ravijot Chugh, Mayank Kumar, and Phalgun Kompalli, upGrad is South Asia’s largest Edtech company with the latest technology and pedagogy. With world-class facilities, the brand offers various programs that include skilling programs, certifications, diplomas, master’,s and executive doctorate programs from top Indian and global universities. The company’s vision is to empower career success for every member of the global workforce as their trusted lifelong learning partner.
Amod Malviya, a co-founder of the B2B marketplace Udaan, has launched a new business called Pre6 two months after leaving Udaan’s board. Malviya shared an announcement on LinkedIn that reads, “New beginnings!” and included a photo of the founding team.
To incorporate the new Bengaluru-based firm, he has partnered with Rishi Kedia, the former chief financial officer (CFO) of Udaan. Malviya has been working on the new platform since November 2024, according to his LinkedIn post. With the exception of the fact that it would be a “technology, information, and internet” corporation, nothing much is known about the new platform’s features. The startup’s website simply says “coming soon” and is not yet operating.
Malviya’s Journey in the Startup Sector Till Now
Malviya, a former member of Flipkart’s core team, is an IIT Kharagpur alumnus. In 2015, he left his position as the e-commerce giant’s chief technology officer (CTO) to launch the B2B e-commerce platform Udaan the following year, in 2016.
Malviya resigned from the startup’s board late last year after leaving an operational position at Udaan in 2022. While the B2B e-commerce platform Udaan has been experiencing turbulent waters, Malviya has floated its new venture with a hope of striking a positive chord.
Current Financial Outlook of Udaan
During the fierce funding winter of 2023, Udaan’s valuation dropped to $1.8 billion, a significant decrease from its previous valuation of $3.2 billion in 2020. In October of last year, the business also announced the completion of its INR 300 Cr debt fundraising round, which was provided by Lighthouse Canton, Stride Ventures, InnoVen Capital, and Trifecta Capital.
The B2B e-commerce company has been having financial difficulties growing. According to reports, it was able to raise its gross income from INR 5,609.3 Cr in FY23 to INR 5,706.6 Cr in FY24, a slight rise of 1.72%. At INR 1,674.1 Cr, its loss decreased 19% year over year (YoY).
Launching Their Own Startups Became a New Norm for Co-Founders
There has been an uptick in the number of new businesses launched by startup cofounders, and Malviya is the latest to sail Pre6. It was announced earlier this week that Mayank Kumar, a cofounder of upGrad, has founded a new company named “BorderPlus.”
With the establishment of his new company, Sports For Life, in 2024, DealShare cofounder Sourjyendu Medda made his foray into the sportstech space. In September 2024, Koo cofounder Mayank Bidawatka also founded Billion Hearts Software Technologies to develop consumer goods for customers throughout the world.
Prashanth Ranganathan, a cofounder of the fintech startup PaySense, also founded Zinc, a fintech company focused on international education, last year. Nexus Venture Partners led the $25.5 million seed fundraising round for Zinc.
Ayush Mathur, an early team member of the hotel and travel-tech company OYO, and Mayank Kumar, an education leader and co-founder of upGrad, have joined forces as co-founders to develop BorderPlus, a talent mobility platform that links blue-collar workers to opportunities throughout the world.
After working at the Parthenon Group for almost ten years, the pair is getting back together with the goal of closing the labour gap and emphasising fair access for workers from developing nations like India.
Natural resources are hardly abundant in India. The greatest resource of the nation is its people. India needs to leverage its demographic dividend in order to create something significant and expansive. One of the best examples of how India has created a remarkable service line to meet global demands is in IT services. “I think India is positioned to become the world’s largest supplier of talent to the global economy, given the country’s demographic dynamics,” Kumar said.
With aspirations to grow into other industries like hotel, retail, teaching, construction/logistics, and trucking, in addition to exploring other regions in the future, BorderPlus will initially concentrate on the German healthcare market.
Mathur, who has worked for OYO for more than ten years and was most recently the President of OYO Europe, explains that a large amount of OYO’s European business is in Denmark and Germany, where he has observed a lack of housekeeping workers.
How BorderPlus will work?
With a target of 20–30 applicants every batch, the business intends to deploy many batches each month across different areas. It plans to ramp up to weekly batches after first running batches once a month.
For efficient language learning, the last month or two of the six- to nine-month programs are conducted offline. The remaining months can be completed online, in a hybrid learning environment, or offline. According to Kumar, the first training site is in Pune, followed by Mumbai, and other last-mile training sites will be established around the nation.
For language practice through back-and-forth spoken exchanges, the startup is creating an AI-led conversational bot based on OpenAI architecture. Kumar emphasises that although the programs would cost INR 2 lakh, participants will receive complete reimbursement as a scholarship or relocation aid after they arrive in Germany.
“Once a recruiter recruits them, we might get paid.” It’s a revenue stream that is more driven by enterprises than by consumers,” he continues. The organisation focuses on a finishing school that offers a curriculum that includes 10% skills development, 20% cultural preparation, and 70% language training to prepare students. Kumar notes that India’s educational system already offers robust skill training, particularly in fields like nursing and healthcare, as seen by the BSc Nursing program.
Major Challenges
Teaching 20–23-year-olds a foreign language, especially German, at a time when language acquisition is challenging is one of the biggest obstacles, according to Kumar. Maintaining industry standards is made more difficult by competing with unorganised players who don’t follow the regulations. Building trust for a strong Indian brand abroad is another challenge, especially in the German and European markets where corporates and recruiters might not be familiar with the brand.
Since hospitals are looking for clear and reliable hiring procedures, Mathur thinks that trust is a big issue because of the reputation of unregulated methods. This trust gap can be closed by providing a transparent, technology-driven solution, which is essential for industry growth and cooperation with European and UK organisations.
According to a media report, managing director and cofounder of the edtech unicorn Upgrad, Mayank Kumar, has left his position as an executive to launch a new business. Last month, he began reducing his operational responsibilities at the Mumbai-based company. This step was taken to raise funds for his new venture, which focuses on sending talented Indian workers abroad, particularly for the healthcare industry.
Ronnie Screwvala, the company’s founder and chairman, has been involved in the business more since Kumar left. According to a media report, Temasek-backed Upgrad is also nearing the completion of securing $50–60 million in capital from current investors at a flat valuation of $2.25 billion. Kumar owns 8% of the company, while Screwvala owns 44%. Despite Kumar’s exit from the company, the shareholding pattern remains unchanged.
Upgrad’s IPO Plans
Screwvala’s return coincides with the edtech company’s intentions to go public in India, where the serial entrepreneur’s increased involvement in the company could be advantageous to public market investors.
Mayank has been discussing the notion of raising funds with investors and making pitches to them. He will then register the company, and, as the media report further informs, he has not had operational involvement since October.
India’s Edtech Scenario
The edtech industry is currently undergoing a period of significant transformation. Recent turmoil at Byju’s and a broad restructuring in the higher education sector are significant factors. Upgrad’s revenue in FY24 increased by 25.54% to INR 1,715 crore from INR 1,366 crore the year before. Although Upgrad has expanded at a specific rate, a faster growth rate was the goal.
As a result, Screwvala will now have more influence over important operational decisions. He will now focus more on the IPO plans that are imminent and businesses attempting to capitalise on the present surge in demand for new listings.
Restricting of Upgrad
The restructure at Upgrad was confirmed by Screwvala and Kumar. In October 2023, Ronnie and Kumar had a conversation about Mayank’s lack of involvement in the company’s daily operations and how he could play a more active role. Thus, since the beginning of this year, the two have switched positions at Upgrad, according to Kumar. He also informed further that he is still an 8% stakeholder and that he is not “going anywhere.”
“Moving positions around during a company’s life cycle is exciting, and that is exactly what we have done. Since it has always been our goal to outlast everyone else and build for the long term, none of us are going anywhere. Since this field of skill development, workforce development, and lifelong learning is only getting started, Mayank and I have also assembled an extremely strong team of colleagues around us,” stated Screwvala.
One of the most important business sectors in the circuit is movies. With movies, one could earn millions. However, this is a very difficult line to proceed as a businessman. Well, Ronnie Screwvala is one of the biggest personalities in the Bollywood circuit. He is the founder and CEO of the famous UTV Group. His companies include UTV Software, Bloomberg UTV, UTV Motion Pictures, and many more to name. Read this article to learn about the story of Ronnie Screwvala.
Rohinton Soli Screwvala Quick Facts
Name
Rohinton Soli Screwvala
Born
8 September 1962 – Bombay, Maharashtra, India
Education
Sydenham College of Commerce & Economics
Citizenship
Indian
Title
Founder of UTV Group (Now Walt Disney India), Founder Trustee of Swades Foundation, Founder of Unilazer Ventures, Board of Advisor AIESEC India, Founder of RSVP Movies, Co-Founder of UpGrad
Ronnie is Parsi by blood. He had completed his studies at Cathedral and John Connon School. His father was an employee of British firms J L Morrison and Smith. He is married to Zarina Mehta. Ronnie met her during his initial days at the theatre with Pearl Padamsee.
From childhood, he had a keen interest in theatre and has been a part of the acting crew in a few professional plays with Bombay theatre. He has worked with some big names like Pearl and Alyque Padamsee. He has produced over 70 films, and some of his famous works include Rang De Basanti, The Namesake, Khosla Ka Ghosla, Jodhaa Akbar, and many more iconic movies.
Ronnie Screwvala – Initial Days
His actual entrepreneurial journey started way before UTV came into the circuit. During his initial days, his father wanted him to become a Chartered Accountant. But, he was sure that business was the field that attracted him. Hence, to achieve that, he was looking for business opportunities. Later on, while he was on a trip to England, he got a chance to visit a hairbrush factory. He came across two discarded fully functional automatic toothbrush-making machines. Hence, to open up the doors of business, he purchased it. As soon as he returned to India, he started a business. The business was concerned with making toothbrushes. Many years later, the business became one of the largest producers of toothbrushes and was supplying goods to mega-brands like Colgate.
Apart from the toothbrush business, he had started his own cable network company by the name of Network. During those days, he used to go door to door and ask the residents to sign up for the network. This was a good business idea because, at the time when Doordarshan was the only channel available, this network provided a three-hour video channel providing movies. Initially, this business started with just 30 houses. Later on, it expanded to popular places like Cuffe Parade, Colaba, NApeansea Road, Breach Candy, and Hanging Gardens within a short period.
Ronnie’s idea was way ahead of the time. Well, it is very surprising to see that at a young age, Ronnie understood the importance of good service. He made sure that his services were for the betterment of the entertainment sector as he provided his customers with family-oriented content with good picture quality.
Ronnie Screwvala – UTV Group
Ronnie and Zarina founded the UTV Group, now a country’s household name. This company was founded in 1990 to provide television content to broadcasters. Also, this company was the first independent producer in India, and the company started working by taking up advertisements and movies. Later on, the company started producing quiz shows. One of the company’s biggest hits was the Mashoor Mahal.
Within two decades, UTV expanded into broadcasting, gaming, film, and various other businesses. For the company, the biggest leap to success came during the time of incorporation. The team was engaged in the production of television content for Doordarshan. During this time, Subhash Chandra, who owned Zee TV, had just started to take small steps in the television circuit. Hence, they offered UTV a 550-episode contract. This was the golden opportunity for the team to shine on the big stage.
Ronnie Screwvala – Change of Events That Transformed UTV Into a Mega-Brand
The Success Story of Ronnie Screwvala’s UTV
The very first thing that changed the fortunes of the company was the introduction of flight entertainment by Air India. They hired UTV to provide flight entertainment for their customers. In 1993, the team started to accept programs from external customers and began marketing airtime on their programs. Apart from that, it launched a daily soap named Shanti. The team acquired a 54.60% stake in Lazer Production. Later on, in the same year, the company ventured into the movie distribution business.
In 1996, UTV and Disney got into a contract. This was about dubbing the content for Disney movies for Indian fans. Also, in the same year, UTV started offering services to international airlines for its in-flight entertainment division. The subsidiary of the company USLl acquired Ram Mohan Biographies. The brand was renamed to UTV Tools.
UTV also took a diverse turn in broadcasting by acquiring a controlling interest in Vijay Television Limited. This company operated as Vijay TV. With over 86% stake, UTV incorporated a group named UTV Net Solutions Ltd. IT was focused on Internet content creation via Indian regional language portals. In 200, the company started broadband content collection under the name sharkstram.com.
Hungama Channel, a household name in the country, is a product of UTV entertainment. This channel became the leading children’s television channel within a few years of its release. The company’s success can be measured by the fact that it got itself listed on the Bombay and National Stock Exchange.
With a deal of $10 Million with US-based BKN New Media, UTV opened up the door for itself as a mega brand. UTV toons expanded to 200 employees and purchased additional Autodesk’s 3D Max 8 software.
Ronnie Screwvala – Life as an Entrepreneur
Ronnie Screwvala – Life as an Entrepreneur
Unilazer Ventures
Screwvala is actively engaged as a venture capitalist/private equity investor through his brand and arm, Unilazer. His investment approach involves making early-stage investments in Indian new economy companies and startups, acquiring significant minority stakes, and leveraging his entrepreneurial experience to support founders. Unilazer’s diverse investment portfolio spans sectors such as e-commerce, leading online eyewear companies, AI and Bots, agriculture, and micro-housing finance.
RSVP Movies
RSVP Movies marks Screwvala’s comeback to the media and entertainment sector but with a renewed focus. At RSVP, the emphasis is on working with fresh storytellers to create bold, inventive narratives across films and digital media. Additionally, RSVP is adopting innovative distribution strategies to take its disruptive content to wider audiences globally across theaters and OTT platforms.
U Sports
Screwvala is a co-founder of U Sports, a venture with a strategic emphasis on three distinct sports. Notably, Kabaddi is a widely popular sport in India and across Asia, where his team, U Mumba, stands out as a top contender in the 12-team ProKabaddi League. U Sports also delves into the realms of E-Sports and Football. In the domain of football, the brand U Dreams is dedicated to nurturing and managing talent across various age groups for extended periods.
upGrad
Screwvala co-founded upGrad, a leading online education company in India specializing in higher education. With a strong focus on areas like Digital Marketing, Data Analytics, and Product Management, upGrad has become a major player. The company has valuable partnerships with colleges, including IIT Madras, IIIT-B, BITS Pilani, MICA, and Cambridge Judge Business School Executive Education.
The Swades Foundation
Screwvala, alongside his wife Zarina, dedicates a quarter of his time to the Swades Foundation, with a shared commitment to empower a million people out of poverty. Swades operates in a 3000 sq km area in Raigad, Maharashtra, focusing on Water, Sanitation, Health, and Education, and primarily on creating livelihood opportunities for half a million people in 2000 villages.
During the early days of UTV, Ronnie formed a society named SHARE (Now The Swades Foundation). This stood for Society to Heal, Aid, Restore, Educate. The objective was to develop rural Maharashtra. Presently, Ronnie has donated a whopping INR 2350 crores to the foundation. By establishing The Swades Foundation, he has taken a bold initiative to empower a million people and help them break free from the shackles of poverty. With his unwavering commitment to this shared cause, he is making a significant impact on the lives of those who need it the most.
Ronnie Screwvala – Shark Tank India
Ronnie Screwvala – Shark Tank India Season 3
Accomplished media entrepreneur Ronnie Screwvala has joined the popular start-up reality show Shark Tank India as a new Shark for its upcoming third season. Known for founding UTV Group and currently heading content studio RSVP Movies, Screwvala brings over 30 years of experience across television, films, and digital platforms. His addition to the panel, comprised of Anupam Mittal, Aman Gupta, Namita Thapar, and others, will provide a more diverse perspective and industry expertise to evaluate budding ventures this season. With his sharp insights into B2C and B2B, everyone eagerly anticipates his funding choices and operational guidance this season.
With a clear vision to change the entertainment sector, Ronnie has worked for the betterment of the circuit. His company, UTV, has changed the way we watch and enjoy movies. Apart from the fact that he is a successful entrepreneur, his work for charity makes him an inspiration for many entrepreneurs!
FAQs
Who is the owner of UTV India?
While publicly traded for a time, UTV India is now ultimately owned by The Walt Disney Company, which acquired a controlling stake in 2012. Disney gained full ownership 2013 and integrated UTV’s operations into their Indian media network.
How much was UTV sold for?
UTV was sold to Walt Disney for ₹2,000 crore ($454 million).
Who is the owner of upGrad?
upGrad is co-founded by Ronnie Screwvala, Phalgun Kompalli, and Mayank Kumar.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations.
With exponential growth in the number of internet and smartphone users in India, turning online to get one’s tasks done is now mainstream. Education too falls under this umbrella. Online tutoring has many benefits such as economical courses, flexible schedules, and 24/7 access to get doubts and queries cleared. This has made online learning popular among all age groups. upGrad, a Mumbai-based startup, is bringing the best out of the online education segment.
upGrad has tied up with world-class institutes to facilitate access to career-oriented courses and assist Indian students and working professionals who want to upgrade their careers.
StartupTalky interviewedupGrad founder Mayank Kumar to know how the startup was founded, and how it is helping students and professionals to pursue higher education online. Read on to know about upGrad’s business model, revenue model, founders, challenges, funding, growth, and the story of its success.
upGrad – Company Highlights
Startup Name
upGrad
Headquarters
Mumbai
Founders
Ronnie Screwvala, Mayank Kumar, Phalgun Kompalli, and Ravijot Chugh
upGrad Education Pvt. Ltd. is an online higher education company that provides programs in the areas of data, technology, and management to college students, first-time job seekers, and working professionals and empowers them to reach their peak potential. These programs are designed in collaboration with top-notch universities like IIIT-B, BITS Pilani, MICA, Cambridge Judge Business School, and many others.
To enhance the learning experience further, a comprehensive ecosystem has been built which includes, but is not restricted to, one-on-one mentoring, peer-to-peer learning, industry networking, and expert career guidance. This ensures a holistic approach to gaining the maximum out of the programs offered.
“We, at upGrad, had always believed in the potential of online education being able to transform careers. Hence, the development and adherence to the company’s vision statement since its inception in 2015 – ‘Building careers of tomorrow’,” said Ronnie Screwvala, upGrad founder.
As per an IBEF report, the higher education market in India stands at $102 billion. If we consider the online higher education market, it stands at $247 million and is expected to grow by 8X to reach $1.96 billion in 2021. Techavio’s industry research report pegs the online education market in India to be worth about $18 billion by 2022, growing at a CAGR of around 20% over five years.
The total enrollment in higher education in India has been estimated to be 34.6 million, the Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) in higher education is 24.5% for the age group of 18-23 years, and distance enrollment constitutes about 11.05% of the total enrollment in higher education programs. The perception of recruiters towards online degrees in India has also changed since UGC permitted eligible universities to offer degree courses online. This decision is a revolutionary step toward propelling the online education sector in India.
upGrad learning platform was founded in 2015 by Ronnie Screwvala, Mayank Kumar, Phalgun Kompalli, and Ravijot Chugh.
upGrad Founders
Ronnie Screwvala | Co-founder & Chairman, upGrad
Ronnie Screwvala is the chairman of upGrad. Ronnie is a well-known personality in the Indian television industry and the founder of UTV Group (now known as Walt Disney India), founder trustee of Swades Foundation, founder of Unilazer Ventures, Board of Advisor AIESEC India, and the founder of RSVP Movies. He has been featured on Esquire’s List of the 75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century and ranked 78 among the 100 most influential people in the world on the Time 100 (compiled by Time Magazine, 2009). He was also listed among 25 Asia’s Most Powerful People by Fortune Magazine and titled the Jack Warner of India by Newsweek.
Mayank Kumar | Co-founder & MD, upGrad
Mayank Kumar is the Managing Director and leads the overall operations at upGrad. Before his upGrad stint, Mayank was the VP of Education at Bertelsmann- Europe’s largest media and education conglomerate—where he oversaw the education strategy and its multi-million dollar investments in India. He also served as a Board Member of iNurture—India’s number-one provider of industry-specific academic programs.
Mayank holds a Bachelor’s degree from IIT Delhi and an MBA from the Indian School of Business. He received the coveted BWDISRUPT 40-under-40 Achiever of the Year Award’17 by BW Businessworld. Before joining Bertelsmann, Mayank was a Senior Principal at The Parthenon Group where he advised clients in the education sector on market potential, growth and market entry strategies, investment decisions, revenue & profit uplift strategies. He participated in deals worth USD 1 billion flowing into the education sector and worked with clients from China, South-East Asia, Middle East India, and South America. He also worked at the Tata Strategic Group, advising Tata’s strategic direction.
Ravijot Chugh | Co-founder, upGrad
Ravijot Chugh heads career services, product, design, content, delivery, and student success divisions at upGrad. Ravijot was at Housing.com as a product lead and then at the Parthenon Group where he advised multiple companies and private equity investors on due diligence, market-entry, and growth strategy in the education sector of emerging markets across Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa. He also co-founded a social travel startup called 36hrs. is headquartered in San Francisco. Ravijot Chugh holds a Bachelors’s degree in Computer Science from IIT-Delhi and was part of the Forbes Asia 30 under 30 cohort of 2018.
Phalgun Kompalli | Co-founder, upGrad
Phalgun Kompalli is the head of sales and marketing at upGrad. He heads university partnerships and customer acquisition in addition to sales and marketing. Before UpGrad, Phalgun was a Principal at The Parthenon Group—an education strategy-consulting firm—where he was involved in advising large education conglomerates and investment funds on their growth and investment strategies in the education sector. Phalgun has done significant work in the field of higher education and technology-enabled learning across India, the US, Brazil, Africa, and Southeast Asia. He worked at Opera Solutions before his Parthenon stint. Opera Solutions is an analytics firm providing consultation to Fortune 500 companies on their revenue and cost optimization initiatives through data analytics. He completed his Bachelors in Technology from IIT Delhi.
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upGrad has a workforce of 3800+ employees. The company has strengthened its senior leadership team to capitalize on potential opportunities in the online education sector.
Over the last two years, the startup has developed a holistic digital education experience for working professionals and college students for upskilling and reskilling. We are happy that the new senior leadership brings diverse and rich learnings for upGrad to unlock the immense potential in the online education space and understand the Indian learners. We will continue this growth momentum, offering innovative opportunities for the working professionals and students to equip themselves with the new-age skills for the workforce of the future – Ronnie Screwvala & Mayank Kumar, Co-founders of upGrad.
upGrad’s vision revolves around ‘building careers of tomorrow’. The learning experience it delivers is at the core of its business. The upGrad team constantly strives for excellence and has a high degree of passion and pride in whatever it does. Some of the main highlights of upGrad’s work culture are:
It is committed to building the careers of tomorrow: People working with the company have a sense of job satisfaction and a feeling of doing something special since their contribution has the power to improve the customer/learner’s life and career.
It supports innovation: As an ed-tech company, upGrad believes that technology is the future. That’s why the employees are constantly motivated to take up innovative initiatives across various functions.
Open culture: The leadership team is highly approachable, the structure is flat, and employees are encouraged to take up initiatives.
Promote upskilling: Being a company that endorses upskilling, upGrad spurs its employees to take up its courses at discounted rates for staying relevant with changing times.
The key traits of upGrad’s work culture are centered on:
Long-term thinking with clinical execution.
Empathy and impact.
Accountability and ownership.
Delivering excellence.
“We at upGrad always look for passion in an individual, be it for work or outside work. The individual may be passionate about running, social work, movies, music, traveling, etc. For us, passion demonstrates how driven an individual is & how diligently they follow their passion,” said Mayank Kumar, co-founder of upGrad.
Mayank has vast experience in the education industry, both as an advisor and an investor. He observed the benefits of low infrastructure costs and a large student base in reducing the price of procuring education via the online channel. These factors led to online courses being 53% cheaper than the offline alternatives. Owing to the flexibility of time, schedule, etc., online education is a convenient mode of learning. As a result, many online education companies have sprung up to cater to the huge scope of online courses.
Although there were companies in the K-12 segment and platforms providing MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses), none of them provided formal education coupled with a comprehensive learning experience. Mayank foresaw that the requirement for online learning would be much higher for technical certifications given the increase in the working population at that time. Again, none of the existing companies completely tapped into the online higher education space. This led to the idea behind upGrad which was subsequently launched in 2015.
“We first built a content team which has now grown by 5 folds. They created subject matter from scratch, collecting and collating industry trends and university curriculum. We quickly developed a tech team that focuses purely on the smooth functioning of our online platform. Since then we have always focused on building a great online learning experience by collaborating with the right universities like BITS Pilani, IIIT-Bangalore, Cambridge Judge Business School of Executive Education, etc. We also have collaborations with some of the industry’s best such as Google, Flipkart, Gramener to name a few in order to create a cohesive and practical learning experience,” says upGrad owner Mayank Kumar, explaining the inception phase of the company.
Starting with its first program in entrepreneurship, upGrad has created some of India’s largest online programs to help thousands of professionals and college students achieve their career goals in the areas of data, technology, and management.
upGrad – Mission and Vision
“Making our learners achieve their desired outcomes,” says upGrad mission.
upGrad vision – “Powering career success for every member of the global workforce as their trusted lifelong learning partner.”
“Interestingly, we had registered the company under the name of UEducation when we started. Very soon we conducted an exercise with an external agency to determine our brand name and logo. Through that exercise, we came upon the name – upGrad,” adds Mayank.
According to Mayank, two key reasons behind choosing the name ‘upGrad’ were:
It had a smart twist.
It had a nice connotation to the word “graduation”.
upGrad is all about upgrading lives and careers by offering graduation and post-graduation programs.
upGrad logo
Narrating the concept of the company’s logo, Mayank says “Development of the brand logo was an interesting exercise too. While we looked at multiple options – we liked the existing one where G was in upper-case and highlighted. The shape of the ‘G’ resembles the refresh icon. Hence the logo represents that upGrad is about enabling a refresh for your life and career.”
upGrad – Courses
The online courses offered by the upGrad learning platform include MBA, IT Courses, Data Science, Machine Learning, Digital Marketing, Software, Blockchain, Insurance-related courses, and more. upGrad has a structured educational program for every phase of a person’s career right from college to professional employment.
In line with its vision of ‘building careers of tomorrow’, this Mumbai-based startup inspires college students to take the initial steps towards their professional journey. It focuses on getting them job-ready. The courses prepare students to crack the recruitment processes for different roles through aptitude training, resume building, and mock interview prep sessions. Along with the paid/premium courses that upGrad offers, where the company extends numerous degrees and certifications from a wide variety of courses across the country and abroad, it also offers numerous upGrad free courses ranging from Data Science, Technology to Management.
upGrad has also launched programs with a guaranteed job for those who are seeking their first employment stint. The program offers a guaranteed job upon successful completion of the program. On the other hand, working professionals have the advantage of going back to the university through upGrad’s immersive learning platform without the need to quit their jobs. On course completion, the learners become alumni of the partner university. They also get to attend on-campus hackathons and graduation ceremonies.
upGrad also provides solutions to enterprises seeking the upskilling of their employees. In FY 19-20, upGrad entered into a partnership with 2 of India’s leading IT services companies—Infosysand Wipro. These are multi-year deals and have a strong repeat element. With this, the company has established a strong position in the enterprise ecosystem.
The upGrad team has also introduced a concept called ‘upGrad basecamp’. This is a unique concept wherein the learners get a chance to network and engage in peer-to-peer learning through offline meetups. They also receive career support which involves resume building, career landscaping, mock interviews, interview guarantees, and more. The ‘Just in Time’ Interview Prep by upGrad helps learners with last-minute interview preparation, guiding them through key concepts before interviews, and mentoring them through the joining process.
A key USP for upGrad is its mentorship; the very fact that the startup spends money on mentoring while others find a course and put it online. Some other differentiators are its tech platform, interactive interface, and content—all of which have been created from scratch by its team.
The company has also teamed up with Agora.io, the leading voice, video, and live streaming platform, to launch upGrad Live platform. It is built to replicate a real-time classroom learning experience for enrolled students by providing greater interactivity, real-time doubt resolution, in-class concept checks, and session analytics to gauge live session performances.
upGrad is largely built on a direct B2C model of business wherein the consumer enrolls in the program (post receiving an admit) and pays upfront for the enrollment. For its enterprise business, the company receives payment from companies for training its employees.
upGrad’s program pricing reflects its commitment towards getting students placed. 50% of the program fees are collected from the learner only if they get placed after the program’s completion. This pricing strategy is the first of its kind in India.
upGrad – Funding And Investors
The company has raised $668.2 million till now in 7 funding rounds, with the most recent round on March 29, 2023, totaling $30 million from investor Ronnie Screwvala.
Here are all the details of the 7 funding rounds that UpGrad has seen so far:
Date
Series
Amount
Investors
March 29, 2023
Venture Round
$30 million
Ronnie Screwvala
August 8, 2022
Venture Round
$210 million
ETS Global, Bodhi Tree and Kaizen Management Advisors
June 16, 2022
Venture Round
$225 million
Lupa Systems, Educational Testing Service.
August 9, 2021
Venture Round
$65 million
IFC, IIFL and Temasek
April 26, 2021
Venture Round
$120 million
Temasek Holdings
April 14, 2021
Venture Round
$9.3 million
Unilazer Ventures
August 12, 2020
Debt Financing
$6.69 million
IIFL Asset Management
upGrad – User Acquisition
For the first 100 customers, upGrad used several offline events to promote its initiative. The founders personally spoke to the learners. Prospective learners had to share their video profiles and SOPs (Statement of Purpose) before enrolling. They were then given 2 weeks of learning content for free. Only after experiencing the free content was the payment option made available to them.
“We had expected that initially, 50-60 learners would enroll, but 100 ended up enrolling in the program. It was one of the most exhilarating and humbling experiences for us,” recalls Mayank.
Like all businesses, upGrad encountered multiple challenges. The most significant one was the stigma surrounding the credibility of online education. There is a general perception that online education is frivolous. upGrad had to prove otherwise through its product, customer experience, and success stories; and this was a tough job.
Getting recruiters to accept that online education could be as rigorous as offline education was the next hurdle. Finally, when it came to product pricing, upGrad priced itself at a discount to offline competitors, but at a premium to other online competitors. It was an uphill task to explain the value proposition of the programs to the learners.
“The entire task of building a higher education brand is made more arduous by the prevailing consumer mindset around education. Education in India is considered by many as a time-bound, one-time activity, post completion of which one starts working and does not go back to studying again. It is a mammoth task to change the mindset of the people by convincing them that education has no age limit, lifelong learning is the new mantra and need of the hour for all” – Mayank.
However, there are certain features that set upGrad apart from its competitors. One of the main USPs is the hand-holding provided to each learner. This practice is called ‘student mentorship’ and the team behind it is known as ‘Student Success’ at upGrad.
upGrad’s total acquisition count is 16 companies to date. upGrad acquired Centum Learning in an undisclosed deal, which is the latest acquisition on September 15, 2022.
Here’s the table mentioning all the acquisitions that upGrad has seen so far.
Acquired
Date
Price
Centum Learning
September 15, 2022
–
Exampur
August 1, 2022
–
Harappa Education
July 22, 2022
$37.54 million
WOLVES India
July 14, 2022
–
INSOFE
May 2, 2022
$33 million
Work Better
January 10, 2022
Undisclosed
Talentedge
December 6, 2021
Undisclosed
Global Study Partners
November 29, 2021
Undisclosed
KnowledgeHut
August 3, 2021
Undisclosed
Impartus Innovations
May 24, 2021
$20.22 million
Rekrut India
December 15, 2020
Undisclosed
The Gate Academy
November 24, 2020
Undisclosed
CohortPlus
July 4, 2019
Undisclosed
AcadView
October 29, 2018
Undisclosed
Pyoopil Education Technologies Pvt Ltd
October 17, 2016
Undisclosed
upGrad – ESOPs
upGrad conducted its maiden ESOP on July 13, 2021, and in it, the company promised the liquidity of an amount close to $29.5 Mn (Rs 220 crores). The maiden ESOP of upGrad has formed a large ESOP pool of around 13% of the enlarged equity base and is planned to benefit both the early and promising team members of the company. The inclusive ESOP scheme boasts of having over 600 team members, who share the growth story of the company, consisting of 37 early team members.
The company further increased its employee stock option program (ESOPs) pool by 28% in the middle of November. upGrad, which has earlier spoken of 17,25,810 options (UPGRAD Education-Employee Stock Option (New) Scheme, 2015) has now made it 22,25,810. This also resulted in lifting the pool’s value by 29%, to Rs 427 crore, which was last reported at Rs 331 crore.
UpGrad’s new ESOP options are estimated to be valued at Rs 244 crore ($30 million) according to Fintrackr, while the overall value of the company’s employee shares is roughly Rs 2,058 crore ($260 million) as of reported news in March 2023.
upGrad – Advisors And Mentors
Emphasizing the importance of knowledgeable advisors for an entrepreneur, Mayank says, “There are many acquaintances who have been helping me, guiding me as I go along the journey. As an entrepreneur, you tend to dive deep into execution and thoughts, thereby sometimes failing to look at the bigger picture. It is always good to meet with well-wishers, bounce off ideas and get an outside-in perspective.”
In a short span of around 5 years, the startup claimed to have onboarded over 21,500 paid learners and has impacted more than 370K individuals globally, making it India’s largest online higher-education company based on gross revenue generated from the Indian market in FY18-19.
In the period when the impact of COVID-19 was at its peak, upGrad onboarded over 100 colleges and universities onto its platform to pave the way for blended online learning as the future of education.
upGrad has been successful in achieving its target unicorn status on August 9, 2021, by raising around $185 million in a round led by Temasek, IIFL, and IFC at a valuation of $1.2 billion.
Here are some of the prominent growth highlights of upGrad:
The company is an ed-tech unicorn and stands as a competitor of the highest-valued Edtech company in India, Byju’s
upGrad has witnessed a 100% growth at the beginning of FY21
The company also has over 45,000 paid students
It has crossed a milestone of acquiring 1 million learners in just 5 years of its operations
upGrad claims to have 10,000 graduates in 2022.
upGrad has 300 direct global university partners as of FY23.
It has 20,000 recruitment partners and 30,000 corporate partners.
The company claims to have provided learning to 7 million students in more than 100 countries.
The company’s valuation is $2.25 billion.
As per upGrad website, it has provided jobs in 10,000+ companies.
UpGrad launched UpGrad Foundation
UpGrad has announced the launch of UpGrad Foundation on April 4, 2022, which is a philanthropic initiative of the company and will serve as a non-profit arm of the edtech company. As per the recent reports, the company has already devoted Rs 50 crore to train the teachers, support decent mentorship and coaching, and conduct career counselling sessions, scholarships, internships, and online student exchange programs.
Financials
upGrad operating revenue has increased from Rs 679 crore in FY21 to Rs 679 crore in FY22, while company losses have increased from Rs 211 crore in FY21 to Rs 627 crore in FY22.
upGrad Finanacials
upGrad Expenses
upGrad total expenses increased from Rs 514 crore in FY21 to Rs 1,300 crore in FY22.
Expenses FY21-FY22
FY21
FY22
Advertisement promotion
Rs 205 crore
Rs 424 crore
Employee benefit expenses
Rs 161 crore
Rs 383 crore
University fees
Rs 47 crore
Rs 126 crore
Information technology expenses
Rs 13 crore
Rs 49 crore
Legal and professional fees
Rs 12 crore
Rs 43 crore
Content delivery cost
Rs 37 crore
Rs 124 crore
Others
Rs 39 crore
Rs 151 crore
EBITDA
The company’s financial performance in FY21 and FY22 is worrying. It had a poor EBITDA margin of -58.72% in FY21, which deteriorated to -85.12% in FY22. Per rupee of revenue throughout the two years, operating expenses grew from Rs 1.57 in FY21 to Rs 1.91 in FY22.
upGrad has signed Amitabh Bachchan as its brand ambassador
upGrad has announced that its brand ambassador would be none other than the Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan. The veteran actor will help lift the brand value of upGrad with the help of exclusive endorsements and advertising of the services of the platform and will emphasize the necessity of ‘lifelong learning’ for everyone.
Startup India Learning Program
In 2017, upGrad in collaboration with ‘Invest India’ developed the ‘Startup India Learning Program’. ‘Startup India Learning Program’ is a free online entrepreneurship course by Startup India.
The approach of attracting consumers also included partnerships with entrepreneurship-focused publications to spread the word around. For increasing the customer base, they focused on some subject-specific channels to attract learners. It partnered with universities to launch the next set of programs. Those partnerships also helped scale the existing programs.
upGrad has tie-ups with the following educational institutes:
International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT-B).
Birla Institute of Technology and Science.
Pilani (BITS Pilani).
MICA.
Duke Corporate Education (Duke CE).
Cambridge Judge Business School.
Institute of Management Technology (IMT Ghaziabad).
HDFC Life for insurance-related courses.
IIT Madras, for certification course on Machine Learning and Cloud.
NITTE (Deemed to be University)
In order to help B.Tech students with the additional Full Stack Development (FSD) Specialization to power their skill competencies, upGrad and NITTE (Deemed to be University), Mangalore have launched a partnershiped in May, 2023.
JIS University
To offer a Master of Business Administration in Digital Marketing, JIS University and upGrad Campus have signed a Memorandum of Understanding in August, 2023.
Mumba Masters
upGrad partnership with Mumba partners in June, 2023 and with this partnership they will entry into the sports market is an effort to further develop and increase the brand’s presence on a worldwide basis.
upGrad – Campaign
upGrad Ad-Campaign
upGrad – Star India Deal
upGrad has signed up for a high-value deal with Star India. This enabled upGrad to run its ad-campaign “Sirf Naam ki Nahin, Kaam ki Degree” across television and Hotstar (OTT platform) throughout the IPL 2020 (Indian Premiere League). The move was initiated to expedite the adoption of technology and online education.
This is upGrad’s first major sports association and the first onboarding of an ed-tech player on Dream IPL 2020.
“IPL is the most opportune occasion to reach out to individuals reminding them about the urgency to upskill and prepare themselves for the forthcoming competitive world. Our strategic partnership with Star will enable us with the right platform, thereby helping us reach out to a larger set of audience residing in the remotest corners of Bharat,” said Arjun Mohan, CEO, upGrad.
In 2019, upGrad unveiled its first ad campaign featuring actor Vicky Kaushal. The film breaks the myth of online education being ineffective by showcasing how impactful the online education space is and that it is as good as traditional offline education.
upGrad Campaign
The second campaign was based on the insight that Indian working professionals are in a state of inertia where they feel that they do not need to go back to learning once they have a job. These films ought to make customers realize that they have no choice but to learn and upskill themselves to remain relevant in today’s day and time. The campaigns shed light upon upGrad’s unique online power learning approach and demonstrated its influence along with the role it can play in the positive transformation of an individual’s career. It further intends to establish the fact that in this fast-changing world of technology, new-age skills at the workplace are coveted and that upskilling is a necessity.
upGrad – Layoff
Harappa Education, which upGrad acquired, laid off 30% of its staff in the first round of layoffs that took place in July 2022.
According to several press sources, UpGrad has let go of 60 employees about 30% of its workforce. In March 2023, the startup ecosystem experienced layoffs due to a lack of venture financing.
upGrad – Awards
Being a reputed name in the space of online education, upGrad has been recognized and awarded by many prestigious bodies.
In 2016, it was selected as the official education partner for the Government of India’s ‘Start-up India’ learning program. Through the program, upGrad offers entrepreneurship-based courses in 2 languages—Hindi and English—to the budding entrepreneurs of India.
In 2017, Mayank Kumar, the co-founder and CEO of upGrad, was recognized as the Achiever of the Year by BW Disrupt (Business World) at its 40 under 40 events.
In 2017, the startup was featured in the list of ‘Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in India’ by Fast Company.
The company received the ‘Best Education Brands’ award by the Economic Times and made it to LinkedIn’s ‘Top 25 Startups’ in 2018.
Two of the co-founders, Ravijot Chugh and Phalgun Kompalli, are listed in the Forbes 30 Under 30 class of 2018.
In 2018, upGrad’s Machine Learning Program – PG Diploma in Machine Learning and AI in association with IIIT Bangalore, was ranked as the #1 Course on Artificial Intelligence in India by Analytics India Magazine.
The company has also been awarded the ‘Best Tech for Education’ by IAMAI in 2019.
The company won the Best Excellence in Learning Award from Brandon Hall Group in 2021.
upGrad won Best Advanced in Creating a Learning Strategy in 2022 by Brandon Hall Group.
Company won Learning Provider of the Year Siver winer in 2022.
As part of upGrad’s strategic initiative, the company has declared in April 2020, with an aim to increase the learners’ headcount and revenue, that it will focus on 4 major strategic initiatives:
To launch 35 new diverse online programs in the coming years.
All the 90 online programs upGrad offers would have a start date of every month rather than every quarter as done previously, to cope with the growing demand.
To become the first in India to disburse university-approved degrees through blended, online degree programs.
Strengthen its global footprint by targeting the 40-million-strong South Asian migrant population worldwide.
To add another 26 offline experience centres on top of the 26 centres that are already launched
In the next 5 years, upGrad aims to train and build the careers of over 1 million learners and expects its impact to reach at least 5 million working professionals associated with it in a cascading effect. This growing ecosystem, in the long run, will serve as the momentum for establishing it as India’s largest online higher education company with a strong focus on employability.
The company is all set to revolutionize the online learning experience and enhance the employability quotient of its learners.
“Distance learning has been the precursor to upGrad, while augmented learning will be the successor. As a virtual university, we want both students and educators to benefit from embracing new technologies for higher education. Universities on the other side of the globe have been quick to adopt new-age technologies. It’s time our country picked up the pace, as upGrad’s online power learning experience is as good as offline, if not better.” – Mayank Kumar.
Ronnie Screwvala stated that the number of students aligned to the platform will rise to 3 million by the end of FY23. Besides, he also indicated that the edtech platform is targeting $500 million in gross revenue for FY23. An IPO seemed ahead for the unicorn edtech company in the next 2 years, going by its statements of Ronnie.
“We are in active discussions. There are some interesting opportunities in these times and some great entrepreneurs too, and we are excited to bring those companies into upGrad as we look at growth this year,” said Upgrad
UpGrad is planning to acquire US-based edtech Udacity as per various reports from June 2023.
FAQs
Who are the founders of the upGrad learning platform?
upGrad was founded in 2015 byRonnie Screwvala, Mayank Kumar, Phalgun Kompalli, and Ravijot Chugh.
Who is Upgrad’s CEO?
Arjun Mohan is the CEO of upGrad.
When was upGrad started?
upGrad was founded in 2015.
Who are the top Competitors of upGrad?
The top competitors of upGrad are Coursera, Edureka, Simplilearn, and Unacademy.
How much is upGrad’s operating revenue?
upGrad’s operating revenue was recorded at Rs 679 crore in FY22..
Is upGrad free?
Some of the courses offered by upGrad are free. To make the most out of upGrad’s features, you should register for upGrad’s paid programs.
How is upGrad login done?
You can conveniently login to the upGrad learning platform simply by signing up at the upGrad website/app, and then proceeding to Log in to the same.
What are upGrad free courses?
Along with the paid/premium courses, upGrad also has a collection of upGrad free courses, where the students and professionals can learn almost everything from Data Science to Technology and Management without spending anything.
What is the upgrad mission and vision?
The upGrad mission and vision are:
“Making our learners achieve their desired outcomes.” – UpGrad mission.
“Powering career success for every member of the global workforce as their trusted lifelong learning partner.” – UpGrad vision.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Gradeup.
With exponential growth in the number of internet and smartphone users in India, online learning has become popular irrespective of the age group. Think about it this way – you have notes, recorded lectures and other reference material piling up. The million-dollar question is – where do you start? When do you think you’ll finish? How do you plan out your study schedule and ensure that you’re actually making progress, rather than just convincing yourself of it? These are some of the challenges that Gradeup, with its online Live Courses, is successfully addressing.
With a vision to be India’s largest and most comprehensive online preparation destination for competitive exams, Gradeup was established in 2015 to help students prepare actively for various exams & score better. They have established & nurtured highly engaging exam-specific communities of students and mentors for SSC, Banking, Railways, Teaching, JEE, GATE, NEET, UPSC, Defense, and State level exams.
Gradeup was co-founded by Shobhit Bhatnagar, Vibhu Bhushan, and Sanjeev Kumar. Gradeup was acquired by the Edtech giant, Byju’s on September 7, 2021. The Noida-based online exam preparation platform currently serves as Byju’s Exam Prep, as rebranded by Byju’s. Read on to know more about the Gradeup success story, Revenue, Business model, Funding, Growth and more.
September 8 2021 – Byju’s acquired Gradeup in its 8th acquisition in 2021.
October 12, 2021 – Byju Raveendran of Byju’s feat and his brother join the Gradeup board as Directors.
Gradeup – About and How it Works
Gradeup is India’s largest online preparation platform for competitive exams with a strong user base of more than 20 million exam aspirants. Through Live classes and emphasizing a structured methodology i.e. a daily study plan, they’ve made exam preparation highly effective; while optimizing the process by connecting students with peers pursuing similar objectives to facilitate the exchange of notes, clear doubts, and take better preparatory decisions.
Development of a Community – With the core belief that ‘people prepare better when they prepare together‘, Gradeup focuses on developing exam-specific communities, which are driven by, and focused towards, aspirants. It is the first & only Indian online platform to build a highly engaging community of expert mentors and students; where an aspirant can ask doubts, share updates, and interact with mentors and peers to develop a 360-degree perspective on every topic in the most engaging manner.
Gradeup – Target Market Size
The EdTech industry can be divided into segments such as the K12 segment, which can be further classified into two categories i.e. KG to 7th class & 8th to 12th; followed by the Test preparation segment and upscaling (vocational training). Within these segments, Gradeup caters to the Test preparation segment of the market. The approximate market size of Test prep is 35 Million students. And Gradeup is one of the biggest players in the market with more than 20 Million registered students.
More students are now gravitating toward online education. More than anything, this short term situation is increasing the trust of students and their parents in EdTech. The impact of the current situation on EdTech, in the long run, will be its increased acceptance as an alternative to current offline options.
Gradeup – Founders and Team
Gradeup was co-founded by Shobhit Bhatnagar, Vibhu Bhushan, and Sanjeev Kumar in 2015.
Gradeup founders – Vibhu Bhushan, Shobhit Bhatnagar, and Sanjeev Kumar
Shobhit, Vibhu, and Sanjeev collaborated and established Gradestack Learning Pvt. Ltd. All three of them are self-made and left their jobs to start their entrepreneurial journey. They started without any external support.
Shobhit Bhatnagar
Shobhit Bhatnagar, CEO of Gradeup, takes care of Marketing and Community Development. He is an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta; and a B.E in I.T from Punjab Engineering College. He has over 9 years of experience. Before Gradeup, he worked as a consultant with Ernst & Young and Opera Solutions. Shobhit has been a quizzer in his college days, likes travelling, and is an avid reader.
Vibhu Bhushan
Vibhu Bhushan, CPO/COO of Gradeup, takes care of the Product and Operations. He completed his B.E in I.T from the Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology. He has over 13 years of experience. Before Gradeup, he worked with Yahoo, Infoedge, and was a founder of Floost; an interest-based network and a product of Nogle Technologies. He has been a marathon runner and has a keen interest in athletics. Vibhu has more than 7.5 years of experience in mobile and backend technologies.
Sanjeev Kumar
Sanjeev Kumar is CTO at Gradeup. An engineer by profession, Sanjeev secured his B.Tech degree from MBM Engineering College, Jodhpur. Before Gradeup, he was associated with Infosys as System Engineer. In his free time, he likes to play sports.
Hiring is the most critical part of an organization when it is scaling at a pace. The following three things play a very important role in the company’s hiring process:
Culture fit
Passion for work and the right attitude
Depth in the area of expertise
Current Company Size: The total number of employees in the organization is 330+.
How was Gradeup Started?
Gradeup forayed into the Edtech and test preparation space in 2013. At that time, it worked with publishers and large institutes to mobilize their content and deliver it in an online, mobile-friendly manner for students preparing for competitive examinations.
While this focused on utilizing content in the online space, it was clearly not enough. The learning process lacked the right level of engagement and was, thus, ineffective in improving learning outcomes. It required better direction and planning to help the aspirants.
The team realized that by focusing on learning outcomes, they can contribute significantly to this space and to a student’s preparation journey. And this inspired the founders to solve this problem and fulfill the existing gaps to make online preparation more effective than ever.
“We did tons of student interviews to understand the problems that they face. While doing it we became more and more confident that these issues can be solved easily with the help of Technology. And that’s when we decided to launch Gradeup.”, recalls Vibhu Bhushan, Co-founder of Gradeup.
Shobhit, Vibhu, and Sanjeev, co-founders of Gradeup, had conversations with all major VCs before they got funded. Their pitch was based on the fact that EdTech as an industry has huge potential. Access to high-quality education across all segments of the country is an area of growth and has huge market potential, especially in tier 2, 3, and 4 cities. The question they addressed was “how we can come up with a unique approach that differentiates us in the market and helps us scale faster”.
“During that period, we were in conversation with various investors who all agreed to the fact that sooner or later technology will act as an agent of change in the education sector. And it was just a matter of right time and product that could initiate the disruption process for the offline education model. Our goal was to revolutionize online live learning and emerge as a pioneer in this segment.”, said Vibhu Bhushan.
Gradeup offers two main programs – Gradeup Classroom and Test Series.
Gradeup Classroom isa one-of its kind integrated program, with its online live courses providing a comprehensive learning experience from start to finish. It uses a number of tools and teaching techniques to enhance preparation including:
Live quizzes and analysis
Weekly discussions, mock tests,
24×7 mentor support
Mind maps
A day-wise study plan for each course is designed and delivered by the best teachers in the country.
Gradeup Classroom
Taking this a notch above is Test Series, which gives students access to mock tests based on the latest exam patterns along with previous years’ question papers and fresh questions regularly created by expert faculty. Students get provided with-
Detailed solutions
An in-depth analysis of their performance
They’re all India Rank and Scorecard so that they know where they stand.
It also has an education news portal – NewsEd by Gradeup, which is aimed to help the community to stay updated with all the latest news in the sector.
Gradeup classroom has the following features:
The Learning Process:
The course begins with a Live class on the relevant topics. This is followed by the students accessing ‘Mind Maps’, a unique concept through which students get to recap what they have gone through in digestible nuggets of information, resulting in complete revision in the least amount of time possible. Students are then given chapter-wise quizzes to test how much they have retained, and the answers to these quizzes are discussed along with expert faculty for greater conceptual clarity.
Systematic Study Plan:
Offered to the students, the team focuses on creating a plan not just for completing the syllabus, but finishing it in a convenient way while remaining motivated throughout– something that they will get hooked onto and can follow within and outside of class hours.
Unique and Evolving Framework:
Strengthening the collective model through the contribution of each participant is a mantra Gradeup follows dearly.
Verified Peer-to-Peer Learning:
Gradeup has managed to build a learner’s community of sorts, which is now at the heart of the learning process. Students interact with other students and mentors to solve doubts and ask questions to enrich their learning experience. As much as 95 percent of doubt-solving happens peer-to-peer!
Validation Mechanism:
What sets them apart is that the company has multiple fact-checking processes in place on its platform to filter answers based on their quality. In this way, students are only consuming material that is fact-checked and relevant, so that they do not end up misguiding each other unintentionally.
Building Confidence:
A constant knowledge-focused engagement also builds a sense of camaraderie, confidence, and healthy competition, which is extremely important for comprehensive personality development especially if they are aiming to crack prestigious competitive examinations.
Mentor:
When students enroll for a course on Gradeup Classroom, a personal mentor is assigned to them who is available 24×7 to instantly resolve any doubts that they may have.
Also, Gradeup has a dedicated cross-function Student Success Team that-
Manages core elements of quality content, the comprehensive study plan, constant feedback, and updates, amongst others.
Evaluates every piece of this data puzzle and link together the major internal and external stakeholders – aspirants, faculty, and parents – to establish a transparent communication system.
Keeps the parents informed, the teachers cognizant and the students motivated. Every stakeholder is kept abreast of the progress through virtual Report Cards.
It addresses students’ challenges, either academic or technical, sends reminders for daily academic activity, monitors students’ performance, and organizes live online parent-teacher meetings twice a month.
Lastly, for faculty, the team manages the interface that they can view to check overall batch performance, student-level information, and activity-level information.
Gradeup is a freemium platform. Anyone who is preparing for competitive exams can download the app and visit the website to prepare for their respective exams – they can join the community – interact with fellow peers & mentors to get their doubts answered and they can access preparation material like previous years’ papers, quizzes, etc. All of this is free of cost.
Additionally, on the platform, there are certain paid services like a) Green card– For Purchase of Test series and b) Classroom – Live classes, which aspirants can avail to add further value to their preparation.
From 2019-2020, Gradeup grew 4x and closed the year at 30 Crore revenue. Some of the current metrics are:
350M+ Learning Minutes per Month
25M+ Student Registration
2.5 Lakh+ Paid Users
18M+ App downloads
60,000+ Students Enrolled for Live Courses
3.5M+ MAU
Gradeup – Name, Tagline and Logo
The tagline of Gradeup is “Prep Smart. Score Better.“
Gradeup Logo
Gradeup – Startup Challenges
When Vibhu forayed into the Edtech and test preparation space with his business partners, in 2013, he worked with publishers and large institutes to mobilize their content and deliver it in an online, mobile-friendly manner for students preparing for competitive examinations.
His low point at that time was that they made a business model that couldn’t scale. Also, they were quite dependent on external partners; for whom it was too early to change and evolve.
“However, the high point in my entrepreneurial journey was having the realization that our learning processes needed to have the right engagement levels. And this could be done by upgrading our pedagogy systems and product by making them effective and interactive.”, said Vibhu Bhushan, co-founder of Gradeup.
He also realized that students prepare better when they prepare together. Hence, the co-founders decided that moving forward they will have a community-based model where verified peer to peer learning and validation mechanisms builds trust and reliability towards the content and the platform.
The Gradeup funding can be seen in the fact that it has raised a total of $10 million to date.
Date
Stage
Amount
Investors
July 2013
Pre Seed Round
$20k
–
March 2014
Seed Round
$3 million
Times Internet
August 2015
Funding Round
–
–
September 2016
Funding Round
–
–
November 2019
Series A
$7 million
Times Internet
There is only one external investor – Times Internet.
Gradeup – Recognition and Achievements
35 under 35 Young Entrepreneur 2020 – Shobhit Bhatnagar.
Gradeup – Future Plans
The company is going to launch Goprep – a liveonline coaching appthat will specifically cater to the academic needs of students from 8th to 12th; especially those preparing for JEE and NEET. Through the app, it will also offer one-year courses for students from class 8th to 10th for board exam preparation and Olympiads such as NTSE.
Apart from that, Gradeup is planning to raise funds in the coming months. The team will continue to emphasize Live classes as they can deliver high impact outcomes on a large scale. They plan to expand faculty up to 100 and subject matter experts up to 200. The company also plans to further manifest its presence in tier 2, 3, and 4 towns across the country. Hence, the next round of funding will also be utilized to scale the product and tech capabilities.
Gradeup’s vision is to deliver quality exam preparation across the country through the means of technology. In the next 5 years, they plan to cater to most of the exams that happen across India.
Our superior education quality will be able to help 5 crores + Indians who prepare for different exams. We will be able to deliver the best results among our peers because of our strong focus on quality. – Vibhu Bhushan.
Considering the traction that its live online courses have received so far, Gradeup expects the number of enrollments to touch 60,000 students by the end of FY20, and cross 150,000 by the end of FY21. However, the app was later acquired by Byju’s, after which it has turned into Byju’s Exam Prep, serving 3 crore+ students across the country.
Gradeup – FAQs
Who is the founder of Gradeup?
Gradeup was founded by Vibhu Bhushan, Shobhit Bhatnagar, and Sanjeev Kumar.
What is Gradeup?
Gradeup is a freemium online edtech platform to preapre for competitive exams.
How much is Gradeup Revenue 2020?
For FY2020, Gradeup had received around INR 24 Crores worth of revenue.
Is Gradeup Free?
Gradeup offered a freemium platform. You can join the community – interact with fellow peers & mentors to get your doubts answered and can access preparation material like previous years’ papers, quizzes, etc – all free of cost. However their live classes and test preps, you will need to pay a subscription fee.
Who is Sanjeev Kumar?
Sanjeev Kumar is the Co-founder & CTO at Gradeup. An engineer by profession, Sanjeev secured his B.Tech degree from MBM Engineering College, Jodhpur.
What is Gradeup?
Gradeup is India’s largest online preparation platform for competitive exams with a strong user base of more than 20 million exam aspirants. It currently serves as Byju’s Exam Prep after being acquired by Byju’s in an undisclosed deal.
Although people underestimate the value of education these days because of the “dropout” tag, education is irreplaceable. People need to upgrade their skills instead of just getting a degree.
Schools and colleges are important but the skills which schools and colleges don’t teach us are equally useful. The leading edtech companies of India are changing the scene of education in the country. They are redefining the process of learning. And this contributes towards a bright future for Indian children and youth.
India suffers from a skewed pupil-to-teacher ratio that continues to rise; it compromises the learning experience for students in schools. To counter this skewness, technology-driven learning apps are using gaming elements such as point-scoring, interaction with others, personalization, and data-driven insights to enhance the learning process for students and sharpen their basics in various subjects. These apps are known for their features that enable students to perform better in classrooms.
Edtech startups are emerging as a major business industry in India. The education sector in India was estimated at US$ 91.7 billion in FY18 and was expected to reach $101.1 Billion in FY19 and the edtech market is expected to reach $4 billion by 2025.
Counted among one of the top and biggest edtech companies in India, Byjus is an edtech startup that offers a learning app that provides coaching for competitive entrance exams like IIT-JEE, CAT, UPSC, GMAT, GRE, Engineering & Medical, and courses of grades 6th to 12th. It offers online courses and tablet classes with multi-test and assignment solutions, personal feedback, and in-depth analysis.
After using the Byju’s app, 93% of parents reported a marked improvement in their child’s performance in grades according to the company. Byju’s has 15 million registered users with 900,000 of them taking annual paid subscriptions and an 85% renewal rate. The average app engagement rate, as reported by the company, is 53 minutes per day.
Byju’s is an edtech startup in Bangalore and was founded by Byju Raveendran in 2011. Its current total equity is $5.4 billion. BYJU’S also won many awards like the CRISIL Emerging India Award and the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Award. It is available on Android and iOS platforms.
2. Unacademy
Founders: Heemash Singh, Sachin Gupta, and Gaurav Munjal
Unacademy Website
Launched as a YouTube channel by Hemaash Singh in 2010, Unacademy is now a famous name in the education technology segment of India. It is a popular e-learning startup and one of the leading edtech companies in Bangalore.
Unacademy has provided lessons to more than 30,00,000 (3 million) students to date. It has tied up with some of the most experienced teachers to tutor its students. You will find over 2400 online courses. Most of the courses are free on this platform; however, you may have to pay for the certifications.
Unacademy has a goal of providing free education. And It has ventured into numerous fields like banking, CA, CAPF, UPSC, CLAT, CAT, JEE, pre-medical and more. The video tutorials are available in various languages and students can follow tutors to get directly courses from them. Unacademy’s business model is primarily based on the plus subscription feature offered on its platform.
Unacademy is an edtech company in Bangalore that serves as an online learning marketplace for courses. It was founded by Heemash Singh, Sachin Gupta, and Gaurav Munjal. The YouTube channel was shifted to an online learning platform in 2015. You can still find many videos on Unacademy’s YouTube Channel.
3. iQuanta
Founder: Indrajeet Singh
iQuanta’s website
iQuanta is India’s Largest online CAT preparation community. The founder and CEO of iQuanta Mr. Indrajeet Singh is one of the top 5 young Indian Entrepreneurs. His indigenous shortcuts and unconventional methods earned entitled him “Wizard of Quants”. iQuanta aims at offering quality education accessible to anyone willing to appear for competitive exams, along with its unique pedagogy at affordable prices. iQuanta is a bootstrap Edtech company.
iQuanta was incorporated in 2017 and today, since its inception, has built a community of 3.5 lakh+ aspirants from all over the world with 10,521 + IIM calls and 1000+ IIM converts in just 5 years.
4. TrainerCentral
Parent Company – Zoho
TrainerCentral’s website
TrainerCentral is a Zoho application, which aims to transform the way people teach online. This all-in-one online training platform empowers solopreneurs, edupreneurs, and anyone who wishes to share their expertise with learners worldwide.
The platform provides tools to help trainers build a fully equipped online training business with numerous integration capabilities. Trainers can create their own website, upload content, create course curriculum, host live classes, manage learner communications, certifications, collect learner fees, and much more, on one unified platform.
TrainerCentral strives to mitigate the inefficiencies caused by siloed tools and the technical complexities involved in building an online training business. Trainers and learners alike benefit from the built-in live classroom feature with chat and payment gateway integration options. Online trainers across the globe are thrilled with TrainerCentral, as demonstrated by its steady MOM growth of 30%.
TrainerCentral offers a 15-day free trial to help explore the platform.
5. UpGrad
Founders: Ronnie Screwvala, Mayank Kumar, Phalgum Komapalli, and Ravijot Chugh
UpGrad Website
UpGrad is an online edtech platform that provides higher education programs. It provides an immersive learning experience through the latest technology that powers well-designed courses. UpGrad was founded in 2015 by Ronnie Screwvala, Mayank Kumar, Phalgum Komapalli, and Ravijot Chugh.
6. Next Education
Founder: Raveendranath Kamath, Beas Dev Ralhan
Next Education Website
Next Education is a Hyderabad-based learning website founded by Beas Dev Ralhan and Raveendranath Kamath in 2007 and caters to K-12 students through its technology-based education solutions.
Next Education has leading products such as TeachNext, LearnNext, MathsLab, ScienceLab, and EnglishLab on its platform. These products are used in more than 6,000 schools across the country.
The study material and products are designed to cover the syllabus of CBSE, ICSE, and 23 state boards in 8 major Indian languages. Next Education’s technology platform is based on Linux and open-source resources.
Other technological advancements on the app include 2D and 3D graphics, interactive content of international standards, voice-overs, clear sound, and an innovative course design that is easily accessible via an inbuilt IR remote. The company has invested over Rs. 400 crores and more than Rs. 30 crores on R&D alone.
Leverage Edu started off as a college admissions platform and has now grown to be a full-stack marketplace within a year. Leverage Edu was founded by Akshay Chaturvedi and Aman Arora in 2018.
The platform uses an AI tool to help students in their careers through mentorship products, end-to-end college admission guidance, programs to help them become first-job ready, and one-to-one virtual advisory for multiple career streams.
The app has over 1500+ mentors from Ivy League Universities and individuals from organizations like Apple and Goldman Sachs. The founder was quoted saying, “The platform is in the middle of executing an inspiration product roadmap and will continue to scale and bring onboard great talent aggressively, invest in continuously bettering our experience, and doing more or what we are good at!”
8. NoPaperForms
Founder: Naveen Goyal
NoPaperForms Website
NoPaperForms is a SaaS-based enrollment automation solution startup that aims to transform the admission process in educational institutions in India and abroad.
The platform helps institutions increase their outreach capabilities, enhance recruitment efforts, expand customer service offerings, and improve end results. The entire process is 100% transparent.
NoPaperForms has partnered with more than 190 institutions and claims to have handled 350k+ queries. It has received more than 1.2 million applications and has grown by around 500% in a year’s time to Rs 100 crores. This valuation was achieved after NoPaperForms raised its Series B funding in December 2018.
9. Quizizz
Founders: Ankit Gupta, Deepak Joy Cheenath
Quizizz Website
Quizizz is an interactive teaching platform that allows its users to conduct student-paced formative assessments in an engaging manner for students of all ages. The website can be operated on any browser, PC, laptop, tablet and smartphone.
The platform combines game-design elements and helps teachers turn students’ homework and tests into self-paced games. Then there is the option of instant feedback. Teachers can use their own content or choose from millions of educator-created quizzes.
Quizizz’s aim is to motivate learners and play a part in their growth. Quizizz has over 10 million users and its solution is well-adopted in US-based schools.
10. Campk12
Founders: Anshul Bhagi, Sandeep Bhagi
Campk12 Website
Camp K12 provides entrepreneurship and app development programs to school students during their vacations and weekends. It is a K12 edtech company in India that focuses on developing kids into innovators.
CampK12 was founded by Anshul Baghi in 2010. The company started out as a coding boot camp for kids. As of today, CampK12 has catered to 50,000+ students.
Coursera is another education platform that offers a variety of courses. The USP of Coursera is the experienced professionals it hires which makes it one of the leading edtech startups in India. If you want to learn from highly experienced people from around the world, then Coursera is for you. Just like Unacademy, you can watch the videos of some courses for free but you will have to pay for the certifications and assignments.
12. Cuemath
Founder: Manan Khurma
Cuemath Website
Cuemath is a program that teaches math to children. Cuemath has more than 3000 centers in India and each session in a center has only 6 students at a time. The startup’s emphasis is not on Abacus or Vedic math; it focuses on improving the mathematical concepts of children instead of merely teaching them to calculate fast. Cuemath was founded by Manan Khurma in 2013. The fees range from Rs 2500- Rs 3000 depending on where the branch is located.
IndigoLearn is a Hyderabad-based accountancy focused edtech startup. The startup uses the latest technology and animation techniques to make finance and accountancy fun to learn. IndigoLearn was founded by Somayajula, Sathya Raghu Mokkapati, Suraj Lakhotia, and Sarat Udumari in 2017.
14. My Peegu
Founder: Chetan Jaiswal
MyPeegu Website
My Peegu provides tools that help parents and teachers monitor their kids’ well-being. A team of professional psychiatrists provides treatment to kids for mental development. My Peegu’s services are available in 6 countries including India.
15. Thinkerbell Labs
Founders: Sanskriti Dawle and Aman Srivastava, and Saif Shaikh
Starting as an independent research project named “Project Mudra”, Thinkerbell Labs is now working on a self-learning braille device. The device is named Annie and anyone can learn the braille language with it. Thinkerbell Labs was founded by Sanskriti Dawle and Aman Srivastava. The company showcased its idea on the popular business reality tv show Shark Tank India and received Rs 1crore funding.
16. MyCaptain
Founder: Ruhan Naqash, Mohammed Zeeshan
MyCaptain Website
MyCaptain provides students with a way to experience various fields of interest and test them out. Most of the time, kids choose their path according to the social norms or in the greed of tons of money. MyCaptain helps students discover their interests and indulge in a career that suits them. People can make informed decisions when they are aware of the realities associated with different career trajectories.
17. Adda247
Founders: Anil Nagar
Adda247 Website
Adda247 is one of the best edtech companies in India that assists with government job preparation and provides articles, jobs alerts, quizzes, videos, e-books, e-magazines, discussion forums, etc. The Adda 247 app offers a smooth UI and intuitive workflows that are powered by cutting-edge technologies.
The company has designed other apps like Bankersadda.com (to prepare for banking exams), SSCAdda.com (to prepare for various central government exams), and TeachersAdda.co.in to bag teaching jobs in government schools. The Adda247 YouTube channel contains videos on current affairs and upcoming government job vacancies.
Meritnation is an online education startup based in Delhi. Meritnation was founded by Pavan Chauhan in 2008. It has grown to become one of the most helpful websites for online education. Meritnation provides learning content for students for classes 1st to 12th across CBSE, ICSE, and other leading state boards.
Meritnation offers its users study material, tests, proficiency tests, and Olympiad packs via a social network like experience. The Meritnation app also tracks a student’s progress and displays personalized recommendations along with analytical data reports to point out his or her strengths and improvement areas.
19. Toppr
Founder: Zishaan Hayath, Hemanth Goteti
Toppr Website
Toppr is an online exam preparation platform for K-12 students. Toppr focuses on school curriculum syllabus and entrance examinations like JEE, UPSC, NEET, SAT, etc. It offers structured courses complemented by interactive video lectures, practise question sets, doubt clearing by professionals, and all-India test series.
Toppr is based out of Mumbai and was founded by Zishaan Hayath in 2013. The Toppr app includes goal-based learning, adaptive questions’ practice, performance reports, concept sheets, and previous year question papers. It also offers courses for medical and engineering examinations, board examinations, and Olympiads.
Conclusion
This completes the list of leading edtech companies in India. Even though the Indian education system is undergoing a seismic shift, Indians still have to deal with outdated methods of teaching and inefficient learning techniques. The system also fosters unhealthy competition among students. Edtech startups are gradually changing all of this for the better.
FAQs
Which is India’s largest edtech company?
Byju’s is India’s largest edtech company with a valuation of $21 billion. It has over 10 crore students and 65 lakh annual paid subscribers.
Which is the best edtech company in India?
Byju’s, Unacademy, UpGrad, Vedantu and Toppr are some of the best edtech companies in India.
What are some of the top edtech companies in bangalore?
Byju’s, Vedantu, Unacademy, Simplilearn, and Cuemath are some of the top edtech companies in Bangalore.
Why pay for online courses when you can get them for free? upGrad is such a company that brought out its online education application where students, teachers and everyone else can do courses for free. upGrad’s free courses offer makes it a standout application from other educational websites.
Most websites and applications that you find on the internet do not come free of cost. upGrad is quite opposite to that and that is one of the reasons why it attracted a lot of customers. Competitions are tight in the Indian market and upGrad’s marketing strategy helped them take the lead in the online education platform.
upGrad is an EdTech company that came out with the motive to help students with their higher education. The company performs its business completely online based and free of cost. The application also caters to large variety of courses ranging from undergraduate programs to Master’s degree programs.
Master’s degrees and some post-graduate programs are only offered on a fee payment system. Otherwise, most courses are free of cost and are also offering a completion certificate unlike other educational applications in the market.
It was in the year 2015 when upGrad was launched by the co-founders of the company- Ronnie Screwvala, Phalgun Kompalli, Mayank Kumar, and Ravijot Chugh. Their efforts made upGrad become one of the leading EdTech companies in Asia. Currently, all co-founders of the company are leading different divisions within the organization. Their efforts made it to enter the unicorn club in August, 2021.
Interestingly, upGrad was not meant to be for college students, or school students or any other institutions. But, it was designed so that more people could be familiar with the term ‘entrepreneurship’ and all those things that are required to become successful.
about upGrad learning platform
upGrad Marketing Strategy
upGrad Logo
upGrad is a B2C company and follows a wide range of marketing strategies. The company also focuses on its marketing because it is the only way a company is recognized. Well, a company like upGrad does the same thing.
The CEO of upGrad, Arjun Mohan had even mentioned in an interview that the company spends a whopping sum of money on its advertisements. The company also uses online tools for marketing its products to customers. Some of the most common ones are Google Ads, Social Media Ads, promotional guest posts, and many more.
Back in the year 2020, when the company was just 5 years old had set a budget of INR 175 crore for its marketing. For a startup like upGrad, this amount is considered to be a massive one and surprising too.
Other than spending a large amount on advertising, upGrad also focussed on promotional activities. The company took an active part in promoting its business during the 2020 IPL season. Even in the latest IPL season, i.e. 2021 upGrad took an effective part in its promotional activities.
The company tied up with Disney+ Hotstar and associated with the Star Sports network. This again became a huge boost in the company’s marketing and promotional activities. Surprisingly, the 2021 IPL event became upGrad’s first association with any sport-related event.
upGrad acquired Pyoopil Education Technologies only a year after its formation i.e. in 2016. Pyoopil Education Technologies was a mobile-based SaaS product that was used by corporate. Two years later in the year 2018, upGrad made another acquisition of Acadview Software which was in the field of a college education.
Later, in the year 2019, the company acquired CohortPlus which was known to be India’s largest product management community startup. Looking at the progress that the company has already made it is clear that the company will become the leader in the TechEd companies in the world.
Moreover, the company has got notable connections and tie-ups with large institutes and universities. Some of the most famous collaborations are mentioned below.
Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS)
International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT)
Though there are not many revelations from the company’s side of view it is expected that by the end of 2025, the company plans to cross the 5 million alumni members mark. However, other than that, the company is working on other specialization programs curated by global universities.
With collaborations with global universities, upGrad would become a different and standout educational company in the Indian market. There will be a lot coming from the company’s point of view in the future and we hope to experience the brilliance of learning from upGrad.
upGrad’s products and services are likely to improve and enhance better learning to its customers in the upcoming days. It is not that the company is not doing great currently but the future of the company will determine upGrad’s sustainability in the market.
FAQs
Who has founded upGrad?
upGrad was founded by Ronnie Screwvala, Mayank Kumar, Phalgun Kompalli, and Ravijot Chugh in 2015.
Are there free courses available at upGrad?
Yes, there are free courses which can be done free of cost. The company caters to courses ranging from various subject areas.
Does upGrad provide a 100% job guarantee?
Yes, the company offers a 100% job guarantee to fresher candidates and other people as well.
2021 has been a rollercoaster for all of us, but it has been a watershed moment for the Indian startup ecosystem. Since January 2021, 119 merger and acquisition agreements have been completed, compared to 86 for the entire year of 2020. In 2020, this amounted to $1.3 billion in Mergers and Acquisitions; by 2021, the sum had risen to $3.8 billion. These are simply the agreements that have been made public; the bulk of them have not been made public, and their worth might be far more significant. And, given that we’re a month away from the end of the year, there’s undoubtedly more to come. Here are some of the top startup acquisitions to know about.
Here are listed some of the biggest startup acquisitions of 2021.
Acquisitions by Unacademy
Top Startup Acquisition – Unacademy Acquisition
Unacademy is an EdTech firm located in Bengaluru with a network of over 18,000 educators. It provides Live Classes, both free and subscription-based, for various professional and educational admission examinations. Unacademy has been on a buying frenzy recently.
Kreatryx, a platform founded in 2014 that provides videos, test series, and a postal tracking tool for GATE, CIL, SSC and ESE examinations, was acquired through a cash and stock deal in March 2020. Kreatryx continues to be run by its founder, Ankit Goyal. Unacademy gained a competitive advantage in the GATE and ESE exam prep markets due to the acquisition.
CodeChef
CodeChef, a platform for computer programming, algorithms, and programming competitions, was founded in 2009, was acquired by Unacedemy in June 2020. The acquisition is expected to aid the Facebook-backed company’s development of a coding skills segment for students.
PrepLadder
Unacademy paid $50 million for the acquisition of PrepLadder, a platform founded in 2015 which prepares students for postgraduate medical entrance exams. Unacademy’s prominence in the medical entrance examination categories was bolstered as a result of this move.
Mastree
Mastree, founded in 2019, is a K12 learning platform, which mainly focuses on core curricular subjects. It was acquired by Unacedmy for $5 million in July 2020. This acquisition bolstered the company’s position in the K12 education market. After a year of ownership, unacedamy shut down Mastree in September 2021. It also launched ‘Graphy’ in the same line. Users may utilise photos, videos, quizzes, and audio to study books and unique material.
Coursavy
Unacademy acquired Coursavy in September 2020 to improve its position in the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) examinations category. Coursavy, founded in 2018, is a platform that offers live lectures, online courses and provides students with handwritten study notes. and comprehensive quizzes.
Scapic acquired by Flipkart
Top Startup Acquisition
Flipkart bought Augmented Reality (AR) company Scapic in November 2020, intending to make shopping on its platform more engaging. Flipkart did not reveal the financial terms of the acquisition. As part of the transaction, it absorbed the Scapic team.
It’s a part of Flipkart’s plan to offer more immersive camera experiences, virtual shops, and new ways for brands to advertise on the site.
EY is a leading provider of assurance, consultancy, strategy and transactions, and tax services worldwide. Spotmentor technologies, an end-to-end skilling platform that helps organisations discover skills necessary for the future of work, upskilling, and reskilling employees at scale, was acquired by EY India in November 2020 for an unknown price. It makes use of cutting-edge technology like artificial intelligence and machine learning to help organisations address crucial competence gaps.
Rekrut India acquired by upGrad
Top Startup Acquisition
UpGrad is a Mumbai-based online higher education ed-tech firm that offers data analytics, product management, entrepreneurship, and digital marketing courses. It was named the official education partner for the Startup India learning initiative by the Indian government in September 2016. Rekrut India is a firm that provides recruitment and staffing solutions to help businesses grow their human resources. Rekrut India was acquired by upgrad in December 2020 for an unknown sum. It is the first time that an ed-tech or recruiting business has completed a 100 per cent acquisition.
Rekrut India will continue to function independently following the acquisition.
Directly acquired by ClickIndia
Top Startup Acquisition
Clickindia is a classified website that makes it simple to find, buy, sell, trade, and communicate with others who share the same interests. Directly. Live is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) company that enables people and businesses to plan meetings by integrating its platform into their systems and allowing them to hold video conversations with one another. In March 2021, Clickindia bought directly. Live for an undisclosed sum in an all-cash acquisition.
Fleapo acquired by Stritmedia
Top Startup Acquisition
Stritmedia is a four-year-old Kolkata-based firm that specialises in advertising and news media houses and affiliate marketing.
In December 2020, it paid an unknown sum for Fleapo Pvt Ltd, resulting in the establishment of a new brand called Sinofled Pvt Ltd. Fleapo works in the software and application development industry. Apart from the acquisition, Strirmedia aims to invest about $100,000 in expansion plans, staff building, and the brand’s services department.
Cure.Fit bought Fitternity, a Bengaluru-based fitness aggregation platform, in February 2021. It’s also one of the country’s largest fitness facility aggregators. Cure. Fit is a health and fitness firm that provides digital and offline experiences in exercise, nutrition, and mental health.
Fitternity will continue to operate independently, allowing Cure.Fit to expand its Cult Pass offering. Cure.Fit has now acquired Fitternity for the sixth time. Cult was acquired in 2016, followed by Tribe and 1000 Yoga in 2017, Fitness First in 2018, and Onyx in 2021.
Samunnati Financial Intermediation & Services, based in Chennai, which provides financial solutions for the agricultural sector, announced on April 12th, 2021, that it had acquired farmer-centric Agri supply chain platform Kamatan Farm Tech, an agricultural-technology startup focusing on the farming logistics and supply chain segment. After agri-tech firms LivLush and Sabziwala, Kamatan was created.
Elevar Equity, an impact venture capital firm, financed both and combined their firms in March 2020.
According to a statement from Samunnati, the acquisition would enhance the company’s market connection outreach activities. Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs), small merchants, and agro SMEs would interact with corporate customers through the new company.
DailyJoy acquired by Lenskart
Top Startup Acquisition
In April 2021, Lenskart, a Delhi-based eyeglasses firm that joined the unicorn club last year, bought DailyJoy, a food and necessities delivery business in Tier 1/2 cities like Lucknow and Hyderabad, to strengthen its technological stack and technical capacity.
The acquisition is only to bolster the Acquiree’s team strength and exploit its technological knowledge. To assist its expansion, Lenskart wants to make Hyderabad a centre for high-quality, consistent engineering.
GamingMonk acquired by The Mobile Premier League
Top Startup Acquisition
MPL is an esports and skill gaming platform based out of Bengaluru. In April 2021, it acquired GamingMonk, a Delhi-based esports broadcasting platform that conducts esports competitions on various platforms, including mobile, console, and PC. The competitors include FIFA, Counter-Strike, and Call of Duty, and they are all streamed. MPL has absorbed the whole GamingMonk crew.
FAQs
What is startup acquisition?
Startup acquisition is the process of buying a successful or evolving startup company that has gained grip in the market.
Chayanika Goswami
