Education technology space is witnessing a heated competition in the Indian market. Among many domestic and global ed-tech startups, one is UpGrad, a two-and-a-half-year-old company.
Now, in the time of heated competition, the company is looking to expand its reach to new users and strengthen its position in the market. For this, it is now looking forward to investing, acquiring and building partnerships.
A group of investors, led by by media industry veteran Ronnie Screwvala, has committed to invest ₹300 crore in this venture. From the funding, the company has spent less than ₹100 crore, says UpGrad co-founder and managing director Mayank Kumar.
In conversation with VCCircle, he said that the differentiation of his venture against the likes of Coursera, Lynda, etc. comes in the offline connect that they create. He adds that they are focused on getting people to come together on a human environment. He believes that the human element is the biggest differentiator in the crowded space.
The startup is currently focused on scaling its operations and eventually float an initial public offering at the right time. UpGrad is not actively looking at venture capital investments, unless some strategic relations and partnerships comes up.
It is running a programme in collaboration with International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore. The course is charged at ₹225,000. As per the numbers revealed by Mayank, in the year of launch, the startup has trained about 1,000 people.
Going by those numbers, the company has generated a revenue of about ₹20 crore, making it the largest online analytics training programme in the country. Commenting on the financials, Mayank Kumar says,
If a single programme can give ₹20-30 crore revenue, five or six of them can give you much more. We are aiming for ₹100 crore of gross revenue for 2017-18 and we are on track to achieve it. That means, we will see five-fold growth in revenue this year.
The company is soon going to announce a partnership with BITS Pilani and a large premium education brand from abroad, says Mayank. The startup is eyeing Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia for the expansion.
While the company will lay the foundation this year, but the real work on the international market would happen next year. The company is also looking forward to acquire or acqui-hire startups in the career service market or a venture with focus on freelancing individuals. For this, it has kept aside a sum of ₹50 crore.
UpGrad was founded in March 2015 by Phalgun Kompalli, Ronnie Screwvala, Ravijot Chugh and Mayank Kumar. It provides online higher education programs to empower individuals to reach their full professional potential.
The platform is currently offering programs in Digital Marketing and Communication, Product Management, Data Analytics, Big Data Analytics and Entrepreneurship.