Edtech startup Scaler Academy bags $55 million in funding led by Lightrock India

Mumbai: Edtech startup Scaler Academy, which helps faculty college students and tech professionals improve their abilities, mentioned it has raised $55 million in a Sequence B funding spherical led by Lightrock India.

ET was the
first to report the company’s plan of a new funding round on September 15 last year.

The corporate, whose valuation has elevated to $710 million after the funding, will use the capital for enlargement, inorganic development and to beef up its expertise platform, mentioned Abhimanyu Saxena, cofounder of Scaler.

The corporate’s current buyers Sequoia Capital India and Tiger Global additionally participated within the funding spherical, after which the whole capital raised by Scaler since January 2020 stands at $76.5 million.

“That is completely major capital increase to create a struggle chest for the inorganic development alternatives we see in newer markets such because the US,” Saxena instructed ET. “In 2022, we’ll concentrate on India in addition to the US market after which will take a look at different markets, resembling Latin America and South East Asia,” he mentioned.

Scaler was launched in April 2019 by Anshuman Singh and Abhimanyu Saxena. The corporate claims that below the dad or mum firm, InterviewBit, it has grown manifold throughout the pandemic, with income leaping 200% over the pre-Covid stage and is operationally worthwhile.

“We don’t want capital for runway (operational bills) as we’re operationally worthwhile,” mentioned Saxena.

Scaler helps working professionals improve their abilities. To date, greater than 7,500 individuals have joined Scaler’s instructional programmes. It has 50 instructors.

“The failure of legacy establishments in India’s greater schooling sector, significantly within the IT house, has opened up alternatives for avowed status-quo disruptors like Scaler to push a brand new form of considering that appears past price arbitrage-based success,” mentioned Saxena.

Divya Venkatavaraghavan, principal investor, Lightrock India, mentioned, “The group at Scaler Academy (and InterviewBit) are remodeling greater schooling in India by democratising the privilege of working in expertise for hundreds of thousands of Indians. They’re constructing a studying group that’s accountable for outcomes and designed for the way forward for work.”

Shailendra J Singh, managing director, Sequoia Capital, mentioned, “To us, probably the most distinctive a part of Scaler’s technique is that they’re tremendous targeted on extraordinarily high-quality laptop science schooling, delivered with their very own distinctive strategy that makes their programmes sensible and helpful within the work setting. That is leading to excellent pupil NPS and distinctive job placements for Scaler college students.”

John Curtius, accomplice at Tiger World, mentioned, “As an skilled investor in India’s startup ecosystem, we’re significantly bullish concerning the nation’s edtech firms. Scaler’s comparatively younger age (since April 2019) is greater than made up for by the imaginative and prescient and maturity of its founders and the 800-plus member group that’s on a mission to disrupt India’s tech schooling house.”

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