upGrad raises $36.4 million through rights issue from Ronnie Screwvala, Temasek, others

While Screwvala contributed Rs 212 crore ($25.7 million), Temasek infused Rs 81 crore ($9.8 million). The undisclosed set of minority shareholders put in the balance Rs 7 crore ($850,014.9), as per the company’s statement.

A rights issue is a dividend of subscription rights to buy additional stock in a company offered to existing shareholders. “The company is focused on its organic and inorganic growth across multiple verticals of formal education via degree, diploma and doctorate courses in partnership with the best universities in India and globally,” the statement said.

The Mumbai-based startup, founded in 2015, acquired 10 companies between 2020 and 2022, including two in the recruitment space, namely Wolves India and Rekrut India. upGrad added in the statement that it had placed 22,000 candidates with jobs in the year so far.

The company, which operates out of 31 offices across India, the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Vietnam and West Asia, runs on skilling, short-certification courses, bootcamps and job-linked programmes, as well as study-abroad businesses across its acquired and main subsidiaries.

upGrad has made some big spends this month. ET had reported that Sunteck Realty had leased out an entire commercial tower in Mumbai’s Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC) to the company for 29 years, with a cumulative rental payout of Rs 2,000 crore through the total term. The edtech unicorn had also announced the appointment of Dan Rosensweig, a longtime Silicon Valley executive, to its board of directors this month.

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In February, UpGrad co-founder Mayank Kumar had told ET that the company was looking at possible acquisitions to add to its B2B (business-to-business) and workforce training capabilities.The idea, Kumar added, was to look for companies that have reduced their cash-burn rate and sustained business, and not ones likely to wind up if they cut costs.

With over 300 direct global university partners, over 20,000 recruitment partners, and a clientele of 3,000 corporate partners, upGrad claims to have provided learning to over 7 million candidates in more than 100 countries.

The Mumbai-based company was co-founded by Screwvala, Kumar and Phalgun Kompalli in 2015. Bloomberg had reported in June 2022 that the company had doubled its valuation to $2.25 billion in a funding round that included billionaire James Murdoch’s Lupa Systems as well as US testing and assessment provider Educational Testing Service.