Hardeep Singh
Introduction
With over 1.4 million schools and over 35,000 higher education institutes, India has the world’s largest college-going population and one of the world’s largest higher education systems. Despite this, only about a fifth of the relevant population attends higher education. Only about 30% of Indian graduates are considered employable by the industry. Many people, however, struggle to acquire acceptance to a top university; nevertheless, with UpGrad, this can now be done digitally while sitting at home.
UpGrad is India’s leading online education portal, enabling students to gain access to higher education and speciality courses. UpGrad has partnered with a variety of universities to provide distance learning, including MICA, BITS Pilani, IITs, and Cambridge Business School, and the company is currently valued at more than $850 million. Some of their most popular courses include digital marketing, data analytics, digital technology management, data-driven management, and product management.
In other words, is an online higher education organisation that provides data, technology, and management programmes to help college students, first-time job seekers, and working professionals reach their full potential. These programmes were developed in collaboration with notable schools such as IIIT-B, BITS Pilani, MICA, and Cambridge Judge Business School. To improve the learning experience, an entire ecosystem has been built, including but not limited to one-on-one mentorship, peer-to-peer learning, industry networking, and professional career support. This presents a complete method to making the most of the available programmes.
Founders and Foundation of the company
Mayank Kumar and Ronnie Screwvala founded UpGrad in July 2015 with the goal of teaching specific components of multiple entrepreneurial concepts, gaining experience with these concepts by listening to business experts express their problems, and applying these principles to real-world company demands. IIT, IIM, UC Berkley, and the Birla Institute are among the faculty members.
Mayank has extensive expertise in the education industry as both an advisor and an investor. In terms of lowering the cost of online education, he emphasised the advantages of low infrastructure expenses and a huge student base. As a result of these characteristics, online courses are 53% less expensive than their traditional counterparts. Online education is a handy approach to learn because of the flexibility of time, schedule, and other considerations. As a result, to accommodate the increased demand for online courses, a host of online education enterprises have sprung up.
Although MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses) were offered by K-12 companies and platforms, none of them combined formal education with a comprehensive learning experience. Given the current increase in the working population, Mayank predicts that the need for online learning for technical certifications will skyrocket. Again, none of the existing companies has made a genuine foray into the online higher education market. As a result, UpGrad was created in 2015 and made its debut.
The learning and concept introduction sections integrate the experience of 30 entrepreneurs and 10 industry guest speakers. The team was adamant about not starting another edutech business that relied entirely on pre-selected content and videos. As a result, they decided to build a platform that would draw on the expertise and knowledge of entrepreneurs and experts.
Mergers and Acquisitions
UpGrad announced earlier this year that it had set aside $250 million for mergers and acquisitions over the next 7-9 months, following its funding round earlier this year.
In April, the Mumbai-based company, which is backed by media mogul Ronnie Screwvala, received $120 million from Singapore’s sovereign fund Temasek, valuing it at $575-675 million. UpGrad said it has developed particular categories and would target businesses as part of its non-linear development plan. It’s interested in immersive short-form learning businesses in Africa, Indonesia, and Vietnam. To support its expansion objectives, the company announced in June that it would hire 1,000 individuals in the next three months. In April, UpGrad told ET that it plans to put the company on the stock exchange in the future.
Fundinds
UpGrad has partnered with world-class colleges to provide career-oriented courses to Indian students and working professionals, allowing them to grow in their careers. After a $40 million financing round headed by Temasek Holdings, IFC, and IIFL on August 9, 2021, UpGrad was valued at $1.2 billion, giving it the Edtech market’s third unicorn.
Challenges
UpGrad, like any enterprise, had to overcome numerous challenges. The most significant was a poor view of the credibility of online education. There is a prevalent perception that online education is a waste of time. It was a difficult effort for UpGrad to prove otherwise through its product, customer experience, and success stories.
The second difficulty was persuading recruiters that online education could be as demanding as traditional education. Finally, when it came to product pricing, upGrad was less expensive than its retail competitors but more expensive than its online competitors. It was challenging to convey to students the value proposition of the programmes.
Future prospects of the company
UpGrad thinks that education necessitates a full-stack, end-to-end strategy that encompasses all of the elements required to create something revolutionary. Over the next few years, it plans to expand its programming and expand to new locations.
UpGrad claims to be different from other venture-backed edutech companies like Vedantu, Simplilearn, and others in terms of strategy. According to Ronnie, the programme is a well-designed curriculum based on real-life experiences not available on the internet. The goal of UpGrad is to “build tomorrow’s careers.” Its whole business model revolves around the educational experience it provides. The UpGrad team strives for perfection at all times and takes great pride in its work and it wouldn’t be unwise to see the company progress in future.
