upGrad, South Asia’s leading online higher education company, has announced that it has raised $120 million from Temasek, a global investment company headquartered in Singapore.
According to a statement, this is the first external funding raised by the EdTech major. Since its founding in 2015, upGrad has been 100% owned, funded, and run by its co-founders as a capital-efficient business.
Founded by Ronnie Screwvala, Mayank Kumar, and Phalgun Kompalli, upGrad offers over 100 courses in collaboration with top-notch global universities like Duke Corporate Education (US), Michigan State University (US), Liverpool John Moores University (UK), Deakin Business School (Australia), Swiss School of Business Management, (Geneva), IIT Madras (India), IIM Kozhikode (India), and others. The international EdTech leader claimed to have impacted over 1 million total registered learners in over 50+ countries across the world.
Commenting on the funding, upGrad Co-founders said in a joint statement,
"We welcome Temasek in our mission to power career success for each and every member of the global workforce as their trusted lifelong learning partner and drive meaningful career outcomes. This capital will further fuel our commitment towards global expansion as well as deeper India penetration, as we march forward with our goal of making India the teaching capital of the world.”
upGrad plans to use the fresh capital to further strengthen its team, scale its global market operations, and bolster its technology and product capabilities. The Mumbai-based company also said that it plans to pursue M&A opportunities, expand its graduate and post-graduate degree portfolio in India, and scale up operations to achieve its $2 billion revenue goal by 2026, thereby reinforcing its position as a global higher EdTech leader emerging from India.
As per the press statement, Credit Suisse acted as the exclusive financial advisor to upGrad, and Rajaram Legal as the legal advisor.
