UpGrad scores $9.5 Mn from Unilazer Ventures

While higher education-focused edtech platform UpGrad has been in an advanced stage to raise over $100 million from Temasek and International Finance Corporation or IFC, the company has received fresh funds from Unilazer Ventures. 

This would be the maiden financing for the Mumbai-based venture in 2021.

UpGrad has allotted 700,00,000 equity shares of Rs 10 each to raise Rs 70 crore from Unilazer Ventures, regulatory filings show. 

Unlike the likes of Byju’s and Unacademy, UpGrad focuses on executive education. It has partnered with several top-notch universities to offer masters in disciplines such as data science, machine learning, marketing among several others.

The five-year-old company has been in markets to raise capital from external investors. It’s worth noting that Unilazer Ventures is run by UpGrad’s co-founder and chief executive officer Ronnie Screwwala. The VC firm has so far invested in startups such as Dogspot, Zivame, Lenskart, ShopClues, niki.ai among others.

UpGrad claims to have made an impact on over 1 million learners in over 50 countries. Close to 5% of the learners are paying users for the company.

UpGrad had recently said that its annual revenue run rate or ARR for FY21 has hit Rs 1,200 crore or $165 million in FY21. The company had posted operating revenue of Rs 162.3 crore in FY20 with about 12,930 paid learners during the fiscal.

 According to Fintrackr, its losses shot up by 82% to Rs 79 crore in FY20.

While funding in the K-12 and preparatory segments have been at an all-time high with Byju’s and Unacademy collectively raised over $2 billion in the past 15 months, UpGrad has been focusing on gradual growth and profitability.