UpGrad, a startup by Ronnie Screwvala which provides online education for working professionals, has today announced that it has acquired Pyoopil. It is a mobile-based SaaS product used by companies to deploy online training programmes.
With this acquisition, UpGrad will be able to get a shot at addressing the large business-to-business (B2B) education needs and will go hand in hand with its already existing flagship B2C offering.
After joining the UpGrad team, Pyoopil will continue working on building learning products for working professionals. Harsh Tripathi, CEO of Pyoopil, said,
We have been in touch with UpGrad for some time now and given our shared drive and values on how we were approaching online education, we decided it would be best to join hands and do this together.
Pyoopil is a Delhi-based startup, founded three years ago. It has built a learning product with elements of peer engagement and mentorship. The company had raised an undisclosed amount of funding from angel investors.
Mayank Kumar, managing director of UpGrad, said,
The traditional areas on which organisations have built competencies are changing as we move to the digital era. We want to be their learning partner of choice for developing new skills and competencies.
UpGrad will now offer customised programmes to corporate clients in emerging areas such as data analytics, product management and digital marketing, among others. Its online offering is aiming to cut down the non-learning spend, such as lodging and travel, of the corporate and instead channel the funds towards core learning requirements.
The company is also looking at training fresh talent in new age skills, before joining the company. UpGrad has also partnered with Cognizant, Genpact, Gramener, Star TV , Disney, Uber, Google, Microsoft and BookMyShow, among others, for its existing programme content.
UpGrad is one of its kind online learning platform as unlike other online websites offering various courses, it functions as a digital university in itself. There is a selection procedure for getting enrolled in its courses and the fee structure of the online education portal is also at par with similar full-fledged programs in the universities.
