upGrad closes Investment round of USD 210 million

Delhi: upGrad, Asia’s higher edtech major has announced a fresh round of fundraise from marquee investors and Family Offices who join the company cap-table.

This round has witnessed participation from ETS Global (world’s largest TOEFL & GRE Test Leader), Bodhi Tree (a JV of James Murdoch & Uday Shankar), Singapore’s Kaizen Management Advisors Pvt. Ltd, Family office of Bharti Airtel, Narotam Sekhsaria Family Office (Ambuja Cements and ACC), and Artisan Investments (Family Office of Lakshmi Mittal – ArcelorMittal) along with existing investors Temasek, IFC and IIFL.

Founder Group also invested USD 12.5 million in this round to maintain their over 50% ownership in upGrad.

“We welcome our new investors and industry veterans to the upGrad cap table. There is a massive Re-skilling Revolution taking place around the world and over the last 5 years our 4800+ colleagues have worked hard & smart to be at the epicenter of taking advantage of this, not just in India but around the world. Higher EdTech will be on the rise for the next 4 to 5 decades. upGrad in the last 12 months has re-shaped itself to be the most integrated company in this space with career opportunities for the College learners and Working Professionals from the age of 18 to 58 and will be a LifeLongLearning partner for millions in the coming years. We have always been very capital efficient while growing 100% year-on-year and hope to retain that discipline,” said upGrad Co-founders, Ronnie Screwvala and Mayank Kumar in a joint statement while commenting on the fund raise.

upGrad team strength will grow to 7600 from the present 4800 in the next 3 months and will also include about 170 full-time faculty, 1600 teachers, and over 5000 on-contract coaches and mentors, thereby building one of the largest full-time Edtech faculty in the world.

Bucking the slowdown trend within the sector, upGrad has remained bullish with its program completion rate of 80%+ and has emerged as a global leader in the higher education segment. 40% of the company’s total revenue is realized from Repeats and Referrals year-on-year.

upGrad is on track to record annual gross revenue of USD 400-500 million during FY23 out of which about 45% of total revenue will be realised from its own-branded online courses and programs.