Eruditus Supercharges Mission to Make High Quality Education Affordable and Accessible Through $650 Million Capital Raise Led by Accel and Softbank Vision Fund 2

Mumbai: Eruditus, the global leader in making high-quality education accessible and affordable to individuals, companies, and governments around the world, announced today a $650 million funding round, through a mix of primary and secondary funding, which values the company at $3.2 billion, quadrupling its Series D valuation from August, 2020. The investment, led by Accel and Softbank Vision Fund 2, is one of the largest for an education upskilling platform. It also marks Accel’s largest single EdTech investment.

Accel and SoftBank Vision Fund 2 join Emeritus’ returning investors, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Leeds Illuminate and Prosus, who participated in the round, and existing investors, Sequoia Capital India and Bertelsmann. Avendus Capital acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Eruditus on the transaction. The Series E funding follows Eruditus’ recent $200 million acquisition of iD Tech, the world leader in youth STEM education, which marked Eruditus’ expansion into the K12 space.

Proceeds from the round will be used to develop new courses in conjunction with university partners, create new products and industry verticals, expand the company’s business serving governments and enterprises, double-down on new geographical markets, and fund acquisitions.

“The unbundling of higher education and continued learning has only just started. We have known Ashwin and the team at Eruditus for a number of years and have always been impressed by their approach and execution. We believe that the platform and deep partnerships with the world’s best universities puts Eruditus and its partner universities at the forefront of this revolution in higher education. Their products are helping bring the best quality education to students around the world at affordable prices,” said Anand Daniel, Partner at Accel.

In the last twelve months, Eruditus has grown rapidly around the globe with more than 100% year-on-year growth. The company is on track to realize more than $500 million in bookings this year, making it the fastest growing ed-tech skilling platform.

“Eruditus’ mission is to make high quality education accessible and affordable to learners across the world,” said Ashwin Damera, co-founder and CEO. “With this fundraise, we’re excited to scale our unique business model, continue to deliver strong learning outcomes, and grow our global impact at a rapid rate.”

Since its founding,Eruditus has built a massive global upskilling platform that prepares today’s professionals for tomorrow’s rapidly-changing workplace, with over 250 professional learning programs developed in partnership with a network of more than 50 top tier universities, and delivered to more than 250,000 individuals across 80+ countries. The company pioneered Small Private Online Courses (SPOCs), creating industry-driven certification programs, professional certificates, and workforce leadership development initiatives in collaboration with its university partners around the world. Eruditus’ programs are defined by personal engagement between faculty and students, course customization, mentoring and coaching, and career counseling. The results are evident in course completion rates of 85% for their professional learners.

“With the rapid rate of technological disruption, continuous upskilling is necessary in today’s job market,” said Sumer Juneja, Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers. “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.”

This latest investment in Eruditus supports the vital need to upskill and reskill the global workforce across all sectors coming out of the pandemic. According to the World Economic Forum, such upskilling efforts have the potential to create 5.3 million net new jobs by 2030. Additionally, by 2025, half of all employees around the world will require reskilling. Moreover, the projected growth in key sectors such as health care — projected to grow 14% by 2028 — and technology – projected to grow 31% in the cybersecurity field in the next decade – amplify the demand for reskilling.