Ecosystem Weekly | 24th July’22

July 24, 2022
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One of the news of the week has been the acquisition of professional up-skilling platform Harappa by the Higher-ed unicorn UpGrad for INR 300 Cr.

 
Upgrad’s founder, Ronnie Screwvala had commented last month – “Global edtech consolidation is on the cards and we’ll build a $30 to $40 billion higher-ed company. We plan to have an IPO in about two years — for solidly built companies, there’s no good or bad time for an IPO.”
 
In June, it was reported that Upgrad had raised ~ $ 225 Mn at an expected valuation of $ 2.25 Bn. The investment was led by billionaire James Murdoch’s Lupa Systems LLC and Educational Testing Service (ETS), which conducts TOEFL & GRE in the US.
 
Lupa Systems LLC had reportedly taken a majority stake in Harappa in early 2020, as their first major bet in India. Harappa Education had been functioning bootstrapped till then.
 
Analysts were quick to point to the development, as one of many deals, in the inevitable consolidation of the Indian Ed-tech market.
 
Unlike its contemporaries, there has been no news of layoffs at UpGrad. The exception, though not directly linked to UpGrad is one of the companies promoted by Ronnie Screwwala – LIDO learning – abruptly closed operations on Feb 22 after raising $ 10 Mn as part of Series C round on Sep 21.
 
On the other hand, the reported losses of Harappa stood at ~37 Cr against revenue of ~ 4 Cr in FY21 from ~ INR 6.5 Cr in FY 20. The financials for FY 22 are unavailable.
 
UpGrad, primarily a D2C brand, aims to leverage Harappa’s strong presence in the B2B & Enterprise learning space. How would this acquisition pan out? Only time will tell. 
 
Please feel free to share your thoughts on the emerging trends in the ed-tech space.

Ecosystem Ventures This Week

Welcome – Himanshu Sachdev

We welcome Mr. Himanshu Sachdev as a Sr. Business Analyst at Ecosystem Ventures.
Prior to joining us, he worked with Anplify Services Pvt. Ltd. as Financial Analyst and has also served as a Teaching Faculty at Maheshwari Institute, Indore.
He is a qualified CFA and has pursued BMS from Mumbai. He has certification in Equity Research and Financial Modeling.
LinkedIn

 

Startup Funding Summary

Niyo, a Bangalore-based fintech startup, has raised $30 Mn in a funding from Multiples Alternate Asset Management – Read More

Eka Care, a Chennai-based healthtech startup, has raised $15 Mn in Series A funding from Hummingbird Ventures, Mirae Assets, Verlinvest, Aditya Birla Ventures, Binny Bansal, Rohit MA, 3one4 Capital and other HNIs – Read More

Fitterfly, a Mumbai-based healthtech startup, has raised $12 Mn in Series A funding from Amazon Smbhav Venture Fund, Fireside Ventures, 9 Unicorns, Venture Catalysts, Nihar Parikh and Sriram Natarajan – Read More

Creative Galileo, a Mumbai-based edtech startup, has raised $8 Mn in Series A funding from Kalaari Capital, Affirma Capital, East Ventures, Valiant Employee Investment Fund and other HNIs – Read More

Lal10, a Noida-based wholesale marketplace, has raised $6 Mn in Pre-Series A funding from Yuj Ventures, Beyond Capital Ventures, Spiral Ventures, Singularity Ventures, Asymmetry Ventures, Blacksoil, Panthera Peak, Pegasus FinInvest, Nitish Mittersain, Bikky Khosla, Ashok Gudibandla, Kishore Ganji, Suprajit FO, Bob Noyen, Reasoned Ventures and Insaan Group – Read More

M&A Snippets

Mumbai-based edtech startup upGrad has acquired New Delhi-based edtech startup Harappa Education for $38 Mn – Read More

New Delhi-based logistics startup Shiprocket has acquired Ahmedabad-based SaaS platform Arvind for $25 Mn – Read More

Telangana-based unified commerce platform Hesa has acquired Bangalore-based sales intelligence startup Flinkhub for an undisclosed amount – Read More