upGrad Success Story India’s Largest Online Higher Education Company

RONNIE SCREWVALA | Co-founder & Chairman, upGrad

In order to prepare students for the future, the UpGrad business model, which launched in 2015, uses a two-way approach to bridge the gap between students and learning providers. A new EdTech company was founded with the goal of assisting students with their higher education.

It is a company that offers students a variety of courses that they may readily access from anywhere. Additionally, they provide a wide range of courses, from undergraduate to master’s degree programmes.

Only fee-based programmes, such as master’s degrees and some post-graduate courses, are available. Otherwise, the majority of courses are either free or cost very little. Unlike other educational apps on the market, all of the courses gave a completion certificate.

About Upgrad

A company called upGrad Education Pvt. Ltd. offers courses in the fields of data, technology, and management to college students, job seekers, and working professionals in an effort to help them achieve their full potential. Top universities including IIIT-B, BITS Pilani, MICA, Cambridge Judge Business School, and many others collaborated on the creation of these programmes.

UpGrad has created a full ecosystem that includes, but is not limited to, peer-to- peer learning, industry networking, and professional career assistance in order to further improve the learning experience. This guarantees a comprehensive approach to maximizing the results of the programmes provided.

“We, at upGrad, had always believed in the potential of online education being able to transform careers. Hence, the development and adherence to the company’s vision statement since its inception in 2015 – ‘Building careers of tomorrow’,” said Ronnie Screwvala, upGrad founder” upGrad was founded in 2015 by Ronnie Screwvala, Mayank Kumar, Phalgun Kompalli, and Ravijot Chugh.

1. RONNIE SCREWVALA | COFOUNDER & CHAIRMAN, UPGRAD

The Startup upGrad’s chairman is Ronnie Screwvala. He is a well-known figure in the Indian television business and the founder of RSVP Movies, Swades Foundation, Unilazer Ventures, and the Board of Advisors for AIESEC India. He also founded the UTV Group, which is now known as Walt Disney India.

His tremendous personality has earned him spots on lists like Esquire’s 75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century and the Time 100’s 100 Most Influential People in the World, where he was ranked number 78. (compiled by Time

Magazine, 2009). He was also referred to as the Jack Warner of India and included in Fortune Magazine’s list of 25 Asia’s Most Powerful People.

2. MAYANK KUMAR | CO-FOUNDER & MD, UPGRAD

The managing director of upGrad, Mayank Kumar, oversees all business operations. Prior to his time at UpGrad, Mayank was the Vice President of Education at Bertelsmann, the biggest media and education conglomerate in Europe, where he was in charge of the company’s education strategy and its multi-million dollar investments in India. He also sat on the board of iNurture, the leading provider of academic programmes with a focus on a particular industry in India.

Mayank has an MBA from the Indian School of Business and a Bachelor’s degree from IIT Delhi. He was given the prestigious BW Businessworld 40-under-40 Achiever of the Year Award for 2017. Mayank served as a Senior Principal at The Parthenon Group prior to joining Bertelsmann, where he provided customers in the education sector with market potential, growth and entrance strategies, investment recommendations, and plans for increasing revenue and profits. He collaborated with clients from China, South-East Asia, the Middle East, India, and South America on transactions totaling USD $1 billion that were aimed at the education industry. Additionally, he provided strategic advice to Tata at the Tata Strategic Group.

3. RAVIJOT CHUGH | CO-FOUNDER, UPGRAD

At upGrad, Ravijot Chugh oversees the divisions for career services, products, design, content, delivery, and student achievement. After working as a product lead for Housing.com, Ravijot joined the Parthenon Group, where he provided advice to numerous businesses and private equity investors on market entrance, due diligence, and growth strategy for emerging markets in the Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa. In San Francisco, he also co-founded the social travel firm 36hrs.in. IIT-Delhi graduate Ravijot Chugh possesses a bachelor’s degree in computer science, and he was a member of the 2018 class of Forbes Asia’s 30 Under 30.

PHALGUN KOMPALLI | COFOUNDER, UPGRAD

The director of sales and marketing at upGrad is Phalgun Kompalli. He oversees customer acquisition, academic relationships, and sales and marketing. Prior to joining UpGrad, Phalgun worked as a Principal at The Parthenon Group, a company that provides education strategy consulting. While there, he assisted in providing huge education conglomerates and investment funds with advice on how to expand and make investments in the educational market. In India, the US, Brazil, Africa, and Southeast Asia, Phalgun has made important contributions to the fields of higher education and technology-enabled learning. Prior to his time at Parthenon, he worked at Opera Solutions. Opera Solutions is an analytics company that advises Fortune 500 firms on their data analytics-based efforts for revenue and cost optimization. IIT Delhi is where he received his Bachelor of Technology degree.

UPGRAD – ACQUISITIONS

UpGrad aggressively bought numerous businesses to rapidly grow their company. The newest business bought by upGrad on December 6, 2021, is Talentedge. Despite the fact that the firm has not provided the deal’s value, upGrad has indicated in a press release that it is worth roughly 3–4X the revenues of Talentedge for this year, which were estimated to be around Rs 130 crore.

On November 29, 2021, upGrad purchased Global Study Partners (GSP), an Australian two-sided marketplace for the recruitment of foreign students. The business has also committed to investing $16 million for a 100% interest in GSP and another $10 million for future growth.

KnowledgeHut, a startup offering short-term skilling and training courses, was acquired by upGrad on August 3, 2021. Other major purchases made by the business included the $20.6 million ($150 crore) purchase of Impartus by upGrad.

Previously a provider of video-learning solutions, upGrad now fully owns and operates Impartus. Acadview Software was acquired by upGrad in 2018, allowing it to enter the market for higher education. Prior to this, in 2016, the business purchased Pyoopil Education Technologies, a SaaS (Software as a Service) offering based on mobile devices that businesses utilised to deploy online training.

CohortPlus, India’s largest and most vibrant community for product management and data science, was bought by upGrad in 2019.

On July 13, 2021, upGrad performed its first ESOP, in which it pledged to provide liquidity of about $29.5 million (Rs 220 crores). UpGrad’s first ESOP has created a sizable ESOP pool of about 13% of the expanded ownership base and is intended to help the company’s young and promising team members.

37 original team members.

In the middle of November, the company added another 28% to the pool of ESOPs it offers employees. UpGrad has increased the number of options from the formerly stated 17,25,810 (UPGRAD Education-Employee Stock Option (New) Scheme, 2015) to the current 22,25,810.

As a result, the pool’s value increased by 29% to Rs 427 crore from its previous reported value of Rs 331 crore.