Scaler, an edtech upstart from India that helps tech professionals upskill themselves through a variety of online courses, has announced a new $55 million fundraise. This fresh round, which values the edtech company at $710 million, was led by new investor Lightrock India along with two existing investors, Sequoia Capital India and Tiger Global.
Launched in 2019, Scaler’s (by InterviewBit) focus is on upskilling college students and tech professionals and creating with an aim to help them become up-to-date software engineers, something that a usual college curriculum does not provide. The platform provides industry-vetted curriculum, with students enrolled on the platform being mentored and taught by over 1000 tech leaders and subject matter experts working with leading organisations, including Google, Facebook, Intuit, Microsoft, Amazon, Hotstar, Snapdeal etc.
Talking about this recent fundraise, Scaler co-founder Abhimanyu Saxena says, “We were humbled by the strong interest shown by the global investing community who want to be part of Scaler’s future and play a significant role in shaping India’s technology skill space. We decided to go with Lightrock India and our existing investors (Sequoia Capital India & Tiger Global), who share our vision of what we are trying to do at Scaler. The failure of legacy institutions in India’s higher education sector, particularly in the IT space, has opened up opportunities for avowed status-quo disruptors like Scaler to push a new kind of thinking that looks beyond cost arbitrage-based success.”
India’s edtech market, most of the startups in which use ‘failure’ of legacy institutions as a selling point, is expected to become a $30 Billion market in the next 10 years, according to a report released on Wednesday by transaction advisory firm RBSA Advisors. The country has already produced some of the biggest edtech firms globally, including the most valued private edtech company — Byju’s.
But despite a record-breaking flow of money into the sector, specially in past couple of years, it seems investors are still keen on investing in more companies, mushrooming in this segment at record pace. And nearly all of them, have massive numbers to show for.
Scaler claims to have generated a 4.5x RoI (return on investment) for its enrolled students who have joined its various courses. The startup’s parent firm, InterviewBit, is featured on the Financial Times Asia Pacific High Growth Companies 2021 ranking – one of the only two Indian edtech startups to make it to the list.
Scaler’s success in the last two and half years is highlighted by the fact that nearly 7 out of every 10 startup unicorns in India now has a Scaler alumni. “We have over 380+ alumni in just these 9 companies alone – Microsoft, Google, Uber, Amazon, Paypal, Adobe, VMWare, Intuit, Mcafee. The cumulative annual salary of Scaler graduates is more than Rs 600 crore as of today. If you factor in our expenses on teaching and infra, Scaler enables the addition of more than $100 million into India’s economy every year. Our next goal will be enabling the addition of a billion USD to India’s GDP annually,” added Saxena.
With this fresh round of funding, the total capital raised by Scaler Academy since January 2020 stands at $76.5 million.
