Upskilling unicorn upGrad Education Pvt. Ltd has bought New Delhi-based learning solutions platform Centum Learning in a share-swap deal, in its sixth acquisition this calendar year and the 11th so far.
Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. Two people close to the development pegged the deal size at ₹120 crore (around $15 million).
Centum Learning is a wholly owned unit of Bharti Enterprises Ltd, which is also the parent of telecom operator Bharti Airtel. Post the transaction, Bharti Enterprises and its affiliates will join upGrad’s cap table.
The latest deal follows Mumbai-based upGrad’s acquisition of Noida-based online learning platform Exampur for an undisclosed amount in a cash-and-share swap deal in August.
VCCircle reported in July that International Finance Corporation and IIFL-backed upGrad aims to add 3,000 employees this financial year besides making major acquisitions over 2-3 months.
Led by Sanjay Bahl, Centum offers impact-based training to corporates as well as vocational and educational training to schools and college learners to make them either self-employed or meaningfully employed. With over 3,000 learning and development (L&D) specialists, the company claims to have trained more than 2 million people while also impacting over 400 corporates in India and Africa.
Centum is targeting a revenue of ₹ 170 crore this financial year.
“At Centum, we have been focused ontraining, skilling and upskilling for the last over 16 years now. We have put in years of hard work building a bespoke training and content portfolio that makes new-age learning more immersive and outcome-oriented for both corporates and individuals. Both upGrad and Centum are committed to drive in outcomes for their learners to create a scalable portfolio for continued results,” said Bahl.
Upgrad was founded in 2015 by Ronnie Screwvala, Mayank Kumar and Phalgun Kompalli.
“We have noticed that business-to-business (B2B) learning and development is a highly fragmented market. Therefore one way of winning the market was for us to consider M&A as a strategic way of expanding our presence in this domain. We are also in talks for some acquisitions at the international front also,” said Kumar. “Some of the newer businesses where we are looking to invest in includes study abroad. Focus will be the organic route and we expect to record gross revenue of $500 million this financial year,” he added.
UpGrad has been bullish on its acquisition strategy to grow its user base and adjacencies in other verticals including test-prep through the acquisition of The Gate Academy and recruitment and staffing platform Rekrut in 2020.
Meanwhile, the edtech industry, which boomed during the pandemic as teaching moved online, is facing a major funding crunch and moderation in valuations with the reopening of educational institutions. With a focus on conserving costs, several startups have resorted to mass layoffs and cutting discretionary spending.
Edtech unicorns Byju’s, Unacademy, Vedantu and other smaller platforms such as Lido Learning, FrontRow, Udayy, and SuperLearn have either fired or asked hundreds of employees to leave as they shut some of their operations to cut costs.
The broader startup ecosystem has also seen large layoffs with companies like FrontRow, Meesho, CityMall, Mobile Premier League, Cars24, MFine, Furlenco and Trell firing employees this year.
