UpGrad gets $120-m funding from Temasek

Founded in 2015 by Ronnie Screwvala, Mayank Kumar and Phalgun Kompalli, the company claims to have one million registered learners in over 50 countries across the world.

UpGrad on Monday said it has raised $120 million in funding from Singapore-based Temasek. The investment, which the company claims to be its first external funding, reportedly values the ed-tech firm at an estimated $575-$675 million. upGrad did not disclose the valuation.

The company will deploy the bulk of the fresh capital to fund its global expansion and broaden its reach within India. Part of the funds will also be used to pursue relevant M&A opportunities and widen the graduate and post-graduate degree portfolio in India.

UpGrad operates in the higher education segment and offers courses in specialised branches of study, including MBA, BBA, data science, machine learning, marketing and law in partnership with a slew of global and local universities.

Founded in 2015 by Ronnie Screwvala, Mayank Kumar and Phalgun Kompalli, the company claims to have one million registered learners in over 50 countries across the world.

In a statement the company said it aims to achieve $2 billion in revenues by 2026.

Investors have been aggressively backing the ed-tech space as more consumers signed up for online educational services amid the pandemic, boosting subscriptions.

The sector led by Byju’s cornered the bulk of the start-up funding last year. Byju’s alone raised over $1 billion in funding last year and has already closed another about $915 million in funding so far this year.

The market size of the Indian ed-tech sector is estimated to grow by 3.7 times in the next five years to touch $10.4 billion by 2025 from $2.8 billion in 2020, according to a recent report by EY-IVCA. The segment will see more than 37 million paid users by 2025.

Credit Suisse acted as the exclusive financial adviser to upGrad and Rajaram Legal acted as the legal adviser.