If you have been following us for the past few months, you are familiar with the unprecedented boom in the edtech sector owing to the shift to online education-something you can thank the pandemic for. Platforms like Byju’s and Unacademy have already taken a big slice of the pie, and this time it is Mumbai-based executive education platform Eruditus which came forward after raising $650 million in its latest Series E funding round, led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and venture capital firm Accel. The fresh funds, which were made up of a mix of primary ($430 million) and secondary funding ($220 million), bring the company’s valuation to $3.2 billion. It was last valued at around $800 million in August last year.
This also marks Softbank’s second major investment in India’s edtech sector.
The latest round – the proceeds of which will be utilized to develop new courses in conjunction with university partners, create new products and industry verticals, double down on new geographical markets, and fund acquisitions – propels the edtech start-up into the coveted unicorn club and marks it as the fourth edtech unicorn in India and the 23rd (a record!) from the country this year. The funding round also saw investment from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.
upGrad, Byju’s, and Unacademy are the other three Indian edtech unicorns.
“With the rapid rate of technological disruption, continuous upskilling is necessary for today’s job market,” said Sumer Juneja, Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers, in a statement. “The company’s partnerships with elite universities, and use of technology and data to create and deliver high-quality courses positions Eruditus to lead in this space.”
Eruditus, which recently marked its foray into the kindergarten-12 (k-12) sector with the $200 million acquisition of iD Tech, has over 250 professional learning programs which have been developed in partnership with more than 50 top-tier universities, and the platform has built a global upskilling platform, with courses that offer higher education to many students. The universities include prominent names such as MIT, Harvard, Columbia, Cambridge, INSEAD, Wharton, UC Berkeley, IIT, IIM, and NUS, and help Eruditus achieve its goal of making high-quality education accessible and affordable to learners worldwide.
“With this fundraiser, we’re excited to scale our unique business model, continue to deliver strong learning outcomes, and grow our global impact at a rapid rate,” said Ashwin Damera, co-founder and CEO, Eruditus. The start-up counts among its investors names like the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Sequoia India, Prosus, Bertelsmann, and Leeds Illuminate.
Currently, the start-up has delivered its courses to more than 250,000 individuals across 80 countries and is on track to realize more than $500 million in bookings this year.
