Masai School, a 21st-century career-focused coding school, has acquired Design Shift Academy, a Bengaluru-based institute that provides courses on user interface and user experience design.
While the company said that it was a cash and stock deal, it did not disclose the details of the financial terms.
It is Masai School’s first-ever acquisition and the Bengaluru-based company said in a statement that the deal will help strengthen its existing curriculum by introducing comprehensive learning programs on UI & UX design, and product management, taking the company from a coding-centric to a career-focused learning platform.
Design Shift Academy was launched in 2017 by Preeti Sheokand and Sudhir Mor and offers weekend skilling courses in UI and UX design. The bootstrapped company was started as a home-based business with just eight students, and today it has a student base across India and countries like Turkey and Australia. The Bengaluru-based company currently has a 15-member team of designers who work full-time jobs and teach design over the weekends.
Commenting on the development, Prateek Shukla, Co-founder & CEO of Masai School, said,
“The acquisition of Design Shift Academy is a first for Masai School, and is a significant milestone in our growth journey. Having made our mark as a coding-centric platform, we now aim to sharpen our focus towards becoming a career-focused platform. We are happy to collaborate with Design Shift, who will bring to Masai School the expertise and knowledge of the UI/UX design space, and in turn help create holistic learning programs…. There is a growing need for coders, be it frontend or backend, to understand how UI and UX design works, and drive products in the right direction. We look forward to making design education a multidisciplinary aspect through this acquisition.”
According to a statement, Design Shift will continue to focus on its own goals and operate under its own umbrella post the acquisition. The new design programs that Masai School will introduce include six projects with portfolios, and live projects which offer learners the experience of collaborative work between digital designers and software developers.
Sudhir Mor, Co-founder of Design Shift Academy, said,
“Our aim was to enable aspirants with the right skillset, and focus on the actual science of design and the role of human intervention. It was this outcome driven approach which aligned with the vision and mission of Masai School, who were already betting big on factors like inclusivity, accountability and accessibility. The rigour and the outlook with which Masai School was looking at the industry were reasons enough for Design Shift to find conviction in this acquisition. We are happy to join Masai School and are hopeful of positively impacting careers of the country’s future tech workforce.”
Masai School is on a mission to find untapped or underutilized talent and train them for the most in-demand jobs in the world. The startup currently offers programs in full-stack Web and Android App Development and follows the Income Sharing Agreement (ISA) model which offers learners the ‘study now and pay later’ option. The company has recently closed its Series A funding of $5 million led by Omidyar Network India with participation from existing investors Unitus Ventures, India Quotient, and AngelList India.
