Eruditus, an edtech platform that offers executive courses to global audience, has raised $113 million in a new funding round as the company looks to scale its business to reach more learners.
The Series D round was co-led by Prosus Ventures (formerly Naspers Ventures) and Leeds Illuminate, with participation from Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) and existing investors Sequoia Capital India and Ved Capital. Mumbai-based financial services firm Avendus Capital acted as the exclusive financial adviser for the deal.
Founded in 2010, Eruditus partners with top-tier universities across the United States, Europe, Latin America, India, and China to bring world-class professional education to global audience. The Singapore-headquartered company has partnered with more than 30 universities to date, including MIT, Columbia, Harvard, Cambridge, INSEAD, Wharton, UC Berkeley, INCAE, IIT, IIM, and NUS among others, offering more than 100 courses to students from over 80 countries.
Eruditus aims to make high-quality education accessible and affordable globally. It offers many of its courses in multiple languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, and Mandarin. The company, which has offices in six countries and employs more than 650 people, claims to have enrolled more than 50,000 students in the last 12 months.
Speaking about the company, Ashwin Damera, Co-founder and CEO of Eruditus, said,
“COVID-19 is dramatically accelerating change across higher education... We are engaging more deeply with universities worldwide to help them expand their online portfolio and global footprint.”
The company said it will use the fresh capital to partner with more universities and expand in emerging markets. It said it also wants to invest in developing career-ready courses to help the workforce acquire the skills they need to survive in the post-pandemic world.
Commenting on the investment, Ashutosh Sharma, Head of Investments for India, Prosus Ventures, said,
“Eruditus’ goals are a great match for ours – democratizing access of quality resources for a much broader audience. The value of the teachings of the great institutions has been rationed to those who can physically and monetarily access their facilities. Eruditus unlocks those assets and enables those institutions to help a whole new cohort of learners around the globe.”
Prosus Ventures has six edtech portfolio companies spanning education across K-12, vocational upskilling, lifelong learning, and now higher education with the inclusion of Eruditus.
Vivian Wu, Managing Partner, Ventures at Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, also said in a statement,
“Eruditus serves as a critical innovation partner for top universities as they expand online course offerings in response to workforce needs and market demand. We’re excited to support the growing partnerships between US universities and those in India, China, and Latin America that are making truly high-quality education accessible to a broad and diverse range of students.”
Eruditus has claimed to witness a 30% growth in demand quarter-on-quarter following the coronavirus outbreak. Last week, Ashwin Damera told ET that the company had been profitable in the April-June quarter, and expects to post a “substantial profit” in its fiscal year ending June 30, 2021. According to him, the company had clocked $100 million in revenues in FY20 and aims to double in the current year.
Meanwhile, with the latest funding, Eruditus has doubled its valuation to over $800 million in two years, making it among the most valued edtech companies in the country.
