Edtech platform Eruditus has become the latest startup to join the coveted unicorn club. The Mumbai-based executive education platform has raised $650 million as a part of its latest Series E funding round led by venture capital firm Accel US and Japan’s SoftBank Vision Fund II. The latest round has seen capital infusion of USD 430 mn as primary funding and another USD 220 mn for secondary exits for exisiting invetsors, Livemint reported quoting sources.
With the new round of fundraise, the valuation of the edtech platform has jumped to USD 3.2 billion making it the fourth startup from edtch segemnt to turn into unicorn.Last week, UpGrad attained this status where Byju’s and Unacademy are already the market leaders
Backed by Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and Sequoia Capital India, Eruditus partners with top-tier universities across the United States, Europe, Latin America, India and China to bring world-class business and professional education to a global audience. The platform has launched more than 100 courses and serving students from more than 80 countries. Many courses are offered and facilitated in multiple languages, including Spanish, Portuguese and Mandarin. Led by Chaitanya Kalipatnapu and Ashwin Damera, 11-year-old Eruditus offers executive courses for working professionals in top-tier varsities including MIT, Harvard, Columbia, Cambridge, INSEAD, Wharton, UC Berkeley, IIT, IIM and NUS. The universities and Eruditus work to develop courses that are aimed at offering higher education to students. These courses cost anything between $5,000 to $40,000.
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The company reportedly clocks aroubd one-fifth of its overall booking from India while 35% of it comes from the US. The rest of the users come from Europe, Latin America and other geographies. The startup said it will deploy the fresh funds to develop more courses and build new products, TechCrunch reported.
“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,” said Ashwin Damera, co-founder and chief executive of Eruditus. Damera has sold stake worth as much as $100 million in the new round.
