Scaler Academy, an up-skilling platform for tech professionals and college students, has raised $55 million as a part of its Series B funding round led by Lightrock India.
The round also witnessed participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital India and Tiger Global. The latest investment raises the startup’s valuation to US$710 million.
With the current round of funding, the Bengaluru-based startup aims to focus mainly on its international expansion plans, make strategic acquisitions, and grow its customer base in India and globally.
Launched in April 2019 by IIT Hyderabad alums Anshuman Singh and Abhimanyu Saxena, Scaler Academy is focused on college students and tech professionals. The platform provides mentorship to help pupils crack recruitment processes as well as provides referrals for software opportunities. It also offers an intensive six-month computer science course through live classes delivered by tech leaders and subject matter experts. The meticulously structured program enhances the skills of software professionals by offering a modern curriculum with exposure to the latest technologies. Users on the platform are taught by over 1,000 tech leaders and subject matter experts, who work with organizations including Google, Facebook, Intuit, Microsoft, and Amazon.
The company claims that under the parent company, InterviewBit, it has grown manifold during the pandemic, with revenue jumping 200% over the pre-Covid level and is operationally profitable.
Speaking about the company, Co-founder of Scaler Academy and InterviewBit, Abhimanyu Saxena, said, “The cumulative annual salary of Scaler Academy graduates is more than Rs 600 crore as of today. If you factor in our expenses on teaching and infra, Scaler Academy enables the addition of more than $100 million into India’s economy every year. Our next goal will be enabling the addition of a billion USD to India’s GDP annually. Primarily, we will be using the funds for acquisitions, for few of which we are already in conversation. In the year 2023, we are looking at two-three strategic acquisitions.”
Saxena further added, The product we offer is global. The funds we have raised, hence, are also for certain strategic advancements we want to make, in time, to become a global company. We will be starting US operations very soon. Today, we have an acutely inequitable higher education ecosystem where the top 15 percent of colleges drive millions to attempt an array of entrance examinations, whilst the bottom 85 percent have limited accountability. On top of that, the top 15 percent cater to those who can afford $11,000 or more, further restricting the country’s ability to build a robust talent pipeline for the future.”
Scaler strongly believes that capable individuals can build their dream careers if the platform bridges the gap between their theoretical knowledge and industry-specific skills, and it does just that. The startup has over 8,500 active users on the platform, with over 2,000 learners enrolling every month.
Divya Venkatavaraghavan, Principal Investor of Lightrock India, has said, “The team at Scaler Academy Academy (& InterviewBit) are building a learning community that is accountable for outcomes and designed for the future of work.”
According to the company, it also aims to cross the US$1 billion valuation mark in the next six months.
Last year in October, Scaler had acquired the online learning platform Coding Minutes for $1 million in an all-cash deal. Prior to that, it had acquired New Delhi-based online learning platform Coding Elements in August 2021. The startup’s total capital raised since January 2020 stands at $76.5 million.
